ALBATROSSES 
Albatrosses are the largest of ocean birds, one species, the wandering 
albatross of the Pacific, attaining a wing spread of eleven or more feet and 
a weight of twenty-five pounds. These great white birds follow transoceanic 
vessels for hundreds of miles. For centuries, they have aroused the admira¬ 
tion of sailors by their tireless and seemingly effortless flight. They have 
learned to make use of air currents set up by the moving ships, sailing 
overhead for miles without seeming to move their wings. Sailors frequently 
catch them with baited fish hooks as they swoop down to snatch up the 
galley refuse from the ocean surface. Sometimes they are kept as pets. In 
olden times seamen often used their soft white skin for purses, and carved 
pipes from their hollow bones. 
Travelers and scientists have engaged in a long controversy as to 
whether the same albatrosses follow the ship day after day or whether 
different individuals change off. Some assert that the same bird can, with¬ 
out sleeping, follow a vessel for days at a time; others say that they are 
relieved by different birds of a similar appearance. Both sides offer experi¬ 
ments with tagged birds to prove their case, but the argument is far from 
being settled. 
The wandering albatross was considered by early seafarers to be a 
bird of good omen. Coleridge drew on this legend in his Ancient Mariner, 
wherein the sailor who shot an albatross was pursued by terrible mis¬ 
fortunes. 
In addition to eating refuse from ships, albatrosses feed on fishes 
and small squids. Generally silent, they sometimes utter a grunting moan, 
especially during the courtship ritual. On this occasion, they face one an¬ 
other, about a foot apart, rub their bills together and bow to one another 
in stately ceremony. They will often return the bows of human beings 
during this period. They breed in large numbers on secluded oceanic 
islands, this being their only sojourn on land. Their nest consists of a bare 
space in the shrubbery. The one white egg is laid sometime in May or 
June. The young, fed on food disgorged by their parents, grow very fat. 
After their parents have stopped feeding them and before they have grown 
sufficient feathers to shift for themselves, they live on this stored fat. 
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