THE ALBATROSS. 
415 
amusing scene to watch a group of these birds, a dozen or 
more, assembled together on the side of a hill, grotesquely 
waddling about, selecting their mates ; this being settled, 
they dispersed, and each pair fixed upon a spot for the nest, 
which consisted of a mound of soil, intermingled with 
withered leaves and grass, the average dimensions of which 
were found to be eighteen inches in height, twenty-seven in 
diameter at the top, and six feet at the base. Like the 
Petrels, with which genus they are nearly allied, they lay 
hut one egg, of a white colour, averaging seventeen ounces 
in weight. In one nest only, out of at least a hundred 
examined, were found two eggs, both of the full size, and 
one of them unusually elongated in its longest diameter. 
When forced off the egg, it made a resolute defence, snapping 
the mandibles of its beak sharply together in defiance.” 
Their eggs are inferior to those of Geese, and they have 
less yolk, and more white, in proportion to their size, weigh- 
ing generally about one pound and three quarters. All birds 
of the Albatross and Gull kind on these islands lay their 
eggs in October ; and when new laid they are a great source 
of refreshment. Yoyagers mention another large bird, called 
the Nelly-bird, also a species of Albatross (Diomedea spa- 
diced), of an unpleasing appearance, and extremely voracious. 
Their fondness for blubber often induces them to eat so much, 
that, like the gorged Gull we have described, they are unable 
to fly. A flock, of perhaps five or six hundred, have been 
known to devour twenty tons of sea-elephant fat in six or 
eight hours ; that is, upwards of seventy pounds for each. 
The Albatross will, at one gulp, swallow a salmon of four or 
five pounds weight ; but if more be taken, and the whole will 
not go into the stomach, the bird is often seen with the last 
hanging partly out of the mouth. We have noticed (p. 390) 
the proportion of food consumed by a Cormorant, compared 
with the weight of the body, but its voracity is as nothing in 
comparison with that of the Nelly-bird, which appears in the 
course of twenty-four hours to dispose of nearly three times 
its own weight of food. 
The last genus of this tribe is that of the Petrels, two 
