"It seems that these birds are almost always taken by hook and line, as was the case with the one you saw (stuffed). The hook is baited with pork, and the feathered monsters are quickly attracted by it. told me, to my surprise, that the hook itself is never swallowed, but that it catches in the curve of the beak, and the bird is drawn up by that means. But he afterwards explained it by saying that, after taking the bait, they keep their wings extended at length, of course pulling backwards at the same time, which would give a fair hold to the hook. He had never known a case of their being kept on deck and fed, but said they had frequently had ten or eleven caught and on deck at the same time, so that they must take the bait as voraciously as sharks, and probably without so much cunning. When once on deck they are totally unable to rise in the air, not being able to gather sufficient wind beneath their gigantic pinions for that purpose. If the Albatross once contrives to rise from the water after taking the bait, which sometimes but not often happens, the game is lost at once. The specimen you saw at was a young bird in immature plumage, that of the adult being white or very nearly so. I am sorry I could not obtain a more complete account for you, and also something of their habits and breeding-places; are not the Falkland Islands their chief haunts for this purpose?"-H. H.

That the Falkland Islands are thus used as Albatross nurseries, will appear from the following curious description of the nesting arrangements there:

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The Geese, Penguins, Albatross, &c., who have colonized this place (the Falkland Islands), have very considerately for any ship's crew, and perhaps for themselves too, built their nests in streets of about two or

CHAP. XII.]

ALBATROSS BATTUES.

423

three miles in length, and three to six feet wide. This arrangement is very convenient in every respect. The birds can easily hold a conversation across this street, and the sailors can walk up the centre of it, beat them out of their nests, and march off with the good eggs, thoughtfully leaving behind two or three bad ones, as an inducement for the inhabitants to return to their homes after the invasion.

After we procured about six or seven tons of eggs, killed a good many seal, shot a number of rabbits, and strung our rigging with Geese, we fired a twelve-pounder carronade for curiosity, to see how many birds would rise in sight. We got up our anchor, and left this decidedly capital place for food and fun."*

Our next quotation is even more graphic.

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During the voyage, an occasional battue of the Albatrosses and other marine birds, which abound in the high latitudes between the Cape of Good Hope and Van Diemen's Land, beguiled the leisure time. These battues partook of shooting and fishing, for sometimes we baited large hooks with bits of pork, and caught the gigantic birds by the beak. I remember one day seeing twenty-eight live Albatrosses on the deck together, many of them measuring twelve feet from tip to tip of the wings. Once on the deck, they cannot escape, as they have great difficulty in first rising on the wing. Some of us stored the white feathers, supposing from Nayti's (a native) account that they would be highly valuable in New Zealand; others made tobacco-pouches of the web feet, or pipe stems of the wing bones; the naturalist made preparations of skeletons and skins to keep his

*Coulter's Adventures in the Pacific, p. 23.

hand in, and the sailors prepared the carcasses in a dish called 'sea-pie.""*

The Albatross, it appears, is safe in the storm, but helpless when becalmed; a fact bearing the same moral application as Hannibal's Capuan defeat and the fable of the Sun and the North Wind. When our Albatrosses shall have been surprised in their moments of ease and indolence, Mr. Gould points out the kind of sustenance they require, though any sort of fish diet would probably suit them. It is but natural to suppose that this great group of birds has been created for some especial purpose, and may we not infer that they have been placed in the Southern Ocean to prevent an undue increase of the myriads of mollusks and other low marine animals with which those seas abound, and upon which all the Procellarida mainly subsist ?"

That the Albatross with its great wings should be less able to rise from a level surface than a Pheasant or a Partridge with their short ones, is a paradox of easy explanation. All those birds that sail in the air with little or no visible motion of the pinions are sustained on high upon exactly the same principle as a boy's kite (whence in fact its name). Short-winged birds, such as the Gallinacea, are utterly incapable of this sort of kite-like floating upon the waves of the atmosphere; the wind drops, and down comes the kite, and so would the long-winged bird, if it did not alter its usual mode of flying. The horizontal force of the wind (represented by w K) resisted indirectly by the tension of the string KS, is resolved into a perpendicular force sw, which supports the weight of the kite, and keeps it

* Wakefield's Adventure in New Zealand, p. 20.

CHAP. XII.J

PRINCIPLE OF FLIGHT.

425

W

from falling. With the hovering and drifting Albatross,

part of the resolved force of the wind is employed in causing the onward motion of the bird, and part in keeping it from sinking, parachute-wise to the earth, and gravity, or the attraction of the earth, answers to the tension of the string of the kite; but still the string exists to all intents and purposes, as actually as if it were made of hemp or iron wire.

There is at work in the universe many an agent that is little suspected. A power is not the less potent and real because it happens to be unseen, nor even if it be included amongst the things that are absolutely invisible.

Stay-at-home travellers.-Home of the Sandwich Bernicle.-Natural disposition. Its claims on our patronage.-Natural perfume.-Voice.-First historical notice.-Erroneous nomenclature.-Obstinate pugnacity.-A parallel.Diet.-Weight.-Plumage.-Increase.

ONE great charm in Natural History is that it leads the student through such an ever-changing panorama of

* Cuvier says, "The Bernicles are distinguishable from the common Geese by a shorter, smaller bill, whose edges are not apparent beyond the extremities of the laminæ."