hens, Cape pigeons, parsons, boobies, whale birds, mutton birds, and
many more, wheel continually about the ship's stern, sometimes in
dozens, sometimes in scores, always in considerable numbers. If a
person takes two pieces of pork and ties them together, leaving perhaps
a yard of string between the two pieces, and then throws them into the
sea, one albatross will catch hold of one end, and another of the other,
each bolts his own end and then tugs and fights with his rival till one
or other has to disgorge his prize; we have not, however, succeeded in
catching any, neither have we tried the above experiment ourselves.
Albatrosses are not white; they are grey, or brown with a white streak
down the back, and spreading a little into the wings. The under part of
the bird is a bluish-white. They remain without moving the wing a
longer time than any bird that I have ever seen, but some suppose that
each individual feather is vibrated rapidly, though in very small space,
without any motion being imparted to the main pinions of the wing. I am
informed that there is a strong muscle attached to each of the large
plumes in their wings. It certainly is strange how so large a bird
should be able to travel so far and so fast without any motion of the
wing. Albatrosses are often entirely brown, but farther south, and when
old, I am told, they become sometimes quite white. The stars of the
southern hemisphere are lauded by some: I cannot see that they surpass
or equal those of the northern. Some, of course, are the same. The
southern cross is a very great delusion. It isn't a cross. It is a
kite, a kite upside down, an irregular kite upside down, with only three
respectable stars and one very poor and very much out of place. Near
it, however, is a truly mysterious and interesting object called the
coal sack: it is a black patch in the sky distinctly darker than all
the rest of the heavens. No star shines through it. The proper name
for it is the black Magellan cloud.