THE ALBATROSS. 
4J3 
hurricane. Of this noble bird it may indeed be literally 
said, 
His march is o’er the mountain wave. 
His home is on the deep. 
In the gale he will sweep, occasionally, the rising billows, 
and seem to delight in the spray bursting over him. Tired, 
in truth, they rarely are ; hut should they he, though never 
seen to swim, they can, in consequence of their feet being 
webbed and remarkably large, walk on the surface of the 
water when it is smooth, with hardly any assistance from 
their wings ; and the noise of their tread may he heard at a 
great distance.^ 
They are most voracious birds, and easily caught by 
baiting a hook with offal and letting it trail after the vessel 
by a long line ; on seizing and swallowing the bait, it will 
sometimes rise into the air, from whence, by hauling on the 
line, as a hoy does a kite, it is brought on board. Some- 
times, however, they break the line and escape, which has 
afforded a proof of the distance and length of time they will 
follow a vessel. Thus when hauling in one of large size, 
the line slipped, and the bird consequently swallowed the 
hook, and a portion of the line ; the reminder of which 
hung pendant from the beak. From being thus marked, it 
was ascertained that it followed the ship two days, and 
might have been doing so for days before ; and in these forty- 
eight hours, as she sailed at the rate of two hundred miles 
a day, from the irregular flight of the bird, the space it 
went over could not have been less than three or four times 
that distance. Their reason for preferring rough weather to 
smooth may easily he accounted for, the agitation of the 
waves no doubt bringing to the surface those marine animals 
which serve them for food : they will glide down on them 
with unerring aim and fearful force, transfixing whatever 
they have aimed at with their large, strong, and trenchant bill. 
A poor fellow who fell overboard from a man of war, off 
WEDDELIi. 
