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bird that has come under my observation. Although during calm or moderate weather it sometimes 
rests on the surface of the water, it is almost constantly on the wing, and is equally at ease while 
passing over the glassy surface during the stillest calm, or flying with meteor-like swiftness before 
the most furious gale ; and the manner in which it just tops the raging billows and sweeps between 
the gulfy waves has a hundred times called forth my wonder and admiration. Although a vessel 
running before the wind frequently sails more than 200 miles in the twenty-four hours, and that for 
days together, still the Albatros has not the slightest ditflculty in keeping up with the ship, but also 
performs circles of many miles in extent, returning again to hunt up th e wake of the vessel for any 
substances thrown overboard.” It requires no great stretch of imagination to believe, with the last- 
named naturalist, that in the course of their peregrination they frequently make the circuit of the 
globe — a conclusion the more natural, as the medusee and other marine productions on which they 
subsist appear to be equally abundant in every latitude. 
Dr. Bree writes, in his ‘Birds of Europe’: — “ The Wandering Albatros, of which but few natu- 
ralists have much personal knowledge, inhabits the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Its appearance in 
European seas is rare and accidental ; at least, but few instances of its having been seen there are 
recorded. Degland notices one specimen having been captured at Dieppe about 1830, the head of 
which is preserved by M. Hardy, the well-known naturalist of that place. Another specimen was 
killed near Anvers in 1833, and three more in the neighbourhood of Chaumont in November 1858. 
There is also a specimen in the Museum at Christiania, which Mr. Tristram informs me he has seen, 
which was killed off the coast of Norway. Notwithstanding these instances, however, ornithologists 
have been tardy in admitting this species into the European lists *. Nuttall, whose descriptions are 
always interesting, proceeding as they did from an accomplished naturalist, who, like Audubon, earned 
his reputation in the forests and the prairies, has given an excellent account of this bird. ‘ Vagabond,’ 
he remarks, ‘ except in the short season of reproduction, they are seen to launch out into the widest 
part of the ocean, and it is probable that, according to the season, they pass from one extremity of 
the globe to another ! ’ 
“ I cannot endorse Nuttall’s statement that it is only ‘ when the flying-fish fail they have recourse 
to the inexhaustible supply of molluscous animals with which the milder seas abound ; ’ nor can the 
following be a true record of the natural history of the species : — ‘ They are nowhere more abundant 
than off the Cape of Good Hope, where they have been seen in April and May, sometimes soaring in 
the air with the gentle motion of the Kite at a stupendous height, at others nearer the water, watching 
the motions of the flying-fish, which they seize as they spring out of the water to shun the jaws of the 
larger fish which pursue them. Vast flocks are also seen around Kamtschatka and the adjacent 
islands, particularly the Kuriles and Bering’s Island, about the end of June. Their arrival is consi- 
dered by the natives of these places as a sure presage of the presence of the shoals of fish which they 
have thus followed into these remotest seas.’ It is very evident that Nuttall’s observations relate to 
an entirely different bird ; for no one ever saw the Wandering Albatros capture its food in the manner 
described, nor does its range extend into the region he mentions.” 
I have myself never tired of watching the flight of the Albatros and of speculating on the exact 
nature of its guiding and impelling force. It is interesting, too, to observe the conduct of these 
birds when a number of them, perhaps six or seven, are following in the wake of the steamer. They 
are coursing ai’ound in circles that meet, and with scarcely a movement of their ample pinions, when 
one of them observes a piece of offal, or other object, thrown overboard and drifting astern. It 
suddenly arrests itself in its graceful flight, bends its body into an ungainly shape by stretching forward 
its straddled legs and throwing hack its head, and then flops down into the water, followed first by 
* Both Diomedea exulam and D. chlororhyncha, although admitted hy Dr. Bree on the authority already mentioned, are 
omitted by Mr. Dresser from his ‘ Birds of Europe.’ 
