126 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
for a few months is convinced that one of them is a 
cuckoo ; he is quite sure of this. 
Friday, nth. — Lat. 27.54; long. 38.13. The wind in 
the south-west and the barometer rising in these latitudes 
means more wind from the south, — a fine wild sunset, 
the sun going down in a bank of clouds lighting the crests 
of a stormy sea. With the albatross h^s come the 
weather associated with it He has been sailing after us 
all day with a queer, fearful, 'Alice in Wonderland 1 look 
in his little eye, as if he had seen the snark but couldn't 
tell where. In reality he has been thinking about taking 
a bait that we have been trailing astern. Two or three 
times he sat down beside it in a leisurely way with his 
wings bundled up on his back, and looked so surprised 
when the pork went past ; then he would wait for some 
time after that, paddling about as if it was of no con- 
sequence, stretch out his neck and his wings and run 
along the surface of the water till he got the wind under 
his wings, and come sailing round us again. Once he 
gets his wings straight out he keeps them so as if they 
were stretched on wire. Then he comes sweeping over 
the line and looks it up and down very carefully, 'with 
outstretched neck and ever-watchful eye/ and sits down 
beside the bait again ; this time we have spare line and 
let out as fast as we can, to give him a chance. He tried 
the bait several times, once picked it up in his long, thick, 
flesh-coloured beak, dropped it, and then swallowed it, 
but he didn't like the cold of 'sailies" hook inside it, so 
he rejected it. We have not caught him yet, and we 
