THE ALBATROSS. 
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hole in the skin of the toughest inhabitant of the ocean. 
Besides carrion, they feed on jelly-fish, cuttle-fish, and 
similar aquatic creatures. When very hungry they scream 
without ceasing, and this is often a nuisance, as their 
note is anything but musical, resembling as it does the 
bray of an ass or the neighing of a horse. 
They breed on solitary islands situated in mid-ocean. 
We have to thank an Englishman named Earle, who spent 
nine months on the island of Tristan d’Acunha, for an 
excellent description of a breeding place of these birds. 
He first tells us how he managed to climb the almost 
perpendicular wall of lava-rock so as to reach their 
nesting place, which consisted of a level flat, covered 
only with stinking grass and brake. “A death-like 
stillness/’ says he, “ reigned at this elevation, and our 
own voices gave back a dull, unnatural echo to the ear, 
while our forms appeared gigantic, and the hot air 
seemed to pierce us: the spectacle, however, was grand 
in the extreme, and filled us with awe. Here the mighty 
Albatross had his home, undisturbed by the presence of 
any other creature : here no enemy intruded on his 
privacy; his young lay uncovered on the ground, where 
he had prepared a kind of nest by scratching up the earth. 
The nestlings were • white, and covered with beautiful 
soft down. They snapped their beaks at our approach, 
thereby causing a considerable noise: this snapping of 
the beak, and a habit of vomiting up the contents of the 
stomach, seemed to be their sole means of defence. Five 
months later I climbed the rock a second time, and found 
the young birds still on their nests, which, apparently, 
they had never quitted.” Cornick found the Albatross 
breeding in the months of November and December 
on Campbell and Auckland Islands, and states that 
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