5 22 
TUBE-NOSED BIRDS. 
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 two 
hundred miles in the twenty - four hours, and that for days together, still the 
albatross has not the slightest difficulty in keeping up with the ship, but also 
performs circles of many miles in extent, returning again to hunt up the wake 
of the vessel for any substances thrown overboard.” Moseley states that these 
birds make the utmost use of the momentum acquired by a few powerful strokes 
of the wings, taking all possible advantage of the wind, and progressing largely 
by a gliding movement. Still, however, he adds, the}^ seem to move their wings 
more frequently than is generally supposed. “ They often have the appearance of 
soaring for long periods after a ship without flapping their wings at all, but if they 
be closely watched very short but extremely quick motions of the wings may be 
detected. The appearance is rather as if the body of the bird dropped a very 
short distance and rose again. The movements cannot be seen at all unless the 
bird is exactly on a level with the eye.” 
During the breeding-season, when the light-coloured species are in the full 
beauty of their white plumage, albatrosses resort in large numbers to oceanic 
islands and rocks. In Tristan da Cunha both the wandering albatross and the 
smaller yellow-billed albatross (7). chlororhyncha ) are found in numbers during the 
breeding-season ; the latter being easily distinguished by its yellow gape and the 
broad yellow stripe on the tip of the otherwise black beak. Commonly known to 
the sailors as “ mollymauks,” the yellow-billed albatrosses, according to Moseley, 
“ take up their abode in separate pairs anywhere about in the rookery, or under the 
trees, where there are no penguins. They make a cylindrical nest of tufts of grass, 
clay, and sedge, which stands up from the ground. The nest is neat and round, 
there is a shallow concavity on the top for the bird to sit on, and the edge over¬ 
hangs somewhat, the old birds undermining it, as the Germans said, during incuba¬ 
tion, by pecking away the turf of which it is made.” The nest may be as much as 
fourteen inches in diameter, by ten in height; and at the proper season it contains 
a single white egg, somewhat larger than that of a goose. During incubation the 
egg is held in a kind of pouch, so that the bird has to be driven quite off the nest 
before it can be ascertained whether or not an egg is present. In all cases the 
sitting birds allow themselves to be approached without making the least move¬ 
ment, and almost seem to have forgotten the use of their wings. The wandering 
albatross builds a larger and more conical nest than the mollymauk, and its egg 
is about five inches in length, or about equal in size to that of a swan. At its 
larger end the egg has some specks of red, but is otherwise white. The male birds 
commonly stand or sit hear their brooding partners ; and when the latter are 
approached, they display their displeasure by savagely snapping their beaks at the 
intruder. 
The Petrels. 
Family ProCELLARIIDje. 
Next in size to the albatrosses is the giant petrel (Ossifraga gigantea), the 
sole member of its genus, and the first representative of the second family of the 
