THE ALBATROSS AND FRIGATE-BIRD.
OF all the ocean-birds whose welcome forms beguile the
tedium of a long sea-voyage, perhaps the great, or wandering albatross (Dionzedea exularts), the fateful bird of nautical romance, attracts the most attention. It is found below the thirtieth parallel of latitude in all the Austral seas. Its length, from the beak to the end of the short tail, is about 4 ft., and the spread of wing in the largest out of nearly two dozen we have measured was, if we recollect exactly, 11 ft. 2 in. Most are, however, about 10 ft., or a little more. If its body be considered alone, irrespective of the wings, it may be called a goose-like bird, though it has a short neck, like that of a gull. Sailors, indeed, often call it the " Cape goose." But the wonder is that this inoffensive creature is armed with a tremendously massive beak, probably the moat terrible weapon of its kind, at any rate in appearance, possessed by any of the feathered race. This ends in a vulturine hook with a sharp point, of extreme strength and hardness. A specimen we have just been measuring
as about 7 in. from its junction with the feathers at the top of 'the skull to the end, or, measured along the carves of the upper mandible to the tip, 8 in. The horny crook of this mandible, which is of a denser and harder substance than the rest, and is distinctly joined or spliced on to it as a separate structure, is nearly 2 in. in perpendicular depth, and 3 in. along the curve. The lower mandible is in the form of a deep trough, and its nether edge is nearly flush with the hook of the upper mandible, leaving bat a little bit projecting. The measurement round the bead and under the throat of this specimen is 14 in. The webbed foot, armed with three nails, the largest a fall inch long, is about 7 in. wide. When this creature settles on the water it like a large white duck, though the colouring varies with individuals, and they are never, we incline to think, entirely white. At least, we never saw one wholly white, though in the " roaring forties," few days or none elapse without at least a single specimen appearing, and sometimes there are fifteen or a score. The majority of the birds are chiefly brown above, with a suggestion of a greenish tint ; but white is the pre- vailing hue upon the breast and under-surfaces. These, from a slight inferiority in size and other indications, seem to be immature birds, probably not more than five or six years old, though possibly they are hens. A large number, however, are for the most part white, the brown disappearing last from the upper surface of the wings. One grand bird we remember, distinguished by a wariness due, probably, to years, was wholly white, except at the tips of his wings, where the dark hue still lingered. Another, which was caught, was almost white ; but in addition to the dark tips of the wings, when brought on deck his breast was seen to be not entirely white, but pencilled delicately in sepia with a kind of wavy ripple-mark, last traces of its pristine duskiness. Nothing can excel the whiteness .0f the white parts of the albatross and other birds of ocean. Living for ever in a taintless air, and bathed perpetually by the "clear translucent wave," their plumage is unsullied by the slightest tinge or blemish, pare as a lily or fresh- fallen snow. The breast of the great albatross, moreover, has a beauty all its own. The feathers are broad and rounded, and the white, instead of being milky and opaque, as it is with other sea-birds, shines with a pearly lustre, almost like the feathers of a grebe.
But the most wonderful thing about the albatrosses is their flight. It is an unfailing source of interest. They very rarely ply their wings, but keep the fluent tenor of their way with giant vans outstretched and motionless. All flight is a perennial marvel. We see and partly understand it, since in its common cases the forces which produce and govern it can be determined; but we can have no realising sense of it. But over and above the case of ordinary birds, problems of flight remain whioh almost baffle science. What power conveys the osprey at a level, for furlong after furlong, to sweep upwards without effort at the last? How do the condors sail round Antisana and Sorata without the least vibration of their wings P 'Save when they are rising from the ground, Mr. Darwin, during a long and unremitted scrutiny, failed to detect a tremor of their quills. He was driven to surmise that in a fluid like the air, where friction is so slight, the frequent vigorous movements 'of their necks and other members might suffice for progress ae they floated on their vast supports. But albatrosses do not move at all, except by a slight bending of the neck from side to aide as they search the waves for any nutrient morsel. Fly they do not, in any common sense, but sail; to this conclusion we are forced. The opinion is confirmed by the continual 'alterations of the angle of their wings (that is, of the whole bird, with wings always in a line with one another) with the surface of the water, which probably is done to get the full advantage from every little puff and current. These take all sorts of turns, often at a steep inclination up or down, and the albatross, when he feels the breeze, at once assumes, with faultless instinct, the angle which will give him most propulsion. In consequence of this, his flight often exhibits a great variety of motions, or rather variations of direction, swerving to right or left—obliquely upwards—whither- soaves it may suit him. The act of turning is accompanied by is corresponding change of inclination; thus, as a skater leans over to the centre of a circle of which he describes an arc, so the albatross, when swerving to the right, alters the angle of his frame so that the left wing is elevated and the right depressed. The amount of inclination depends upon the boldness of the curve, and, it may be supposed, the force of wind. When making sudden wheels, he is sometimes absolutely vertical, as perpendi- cular to the water as a pine-tree to the ground. Sometimes he glides with even motion just above the waves, rising and falling with them as though uplifted by the same hydraulic impulse. It is no harder for him to keep up with the ship, as he ranges far and wide in all directions round it, than it is for summer flies to buzz about a horse's head.
An instance of the powers of flight possessed by these untiring birds is afforded by the fact that the same individuals, distinguished by some peculiarity of plumage, may be observed accompanying the ship day after day. We have never seen them fly by night, and as a vessel in the Southern Ocean often makes twelve to thirteen knots an hour, these birds may have had to recover after daybreak as much as a hundred and fifty knots, or a hundred and seventy-five statute miles. Probably no power of wing wherewith a bird could be endowed would serve, without the faculty of sailing, for the albatross's journeys of ten thousand leagues. Daring the transient time of breeding, he repairs to land ; but his home is the wide world. It is a trite remark that dancing is the poetry of motion. The valve is its languishing love lyric ; quadrille, gavotte, and minuet, its comedy and stately drama. But let him who would behold what in the sphere of motion may be likened to the epopee of vocal language, go to the Southern Sea and view the lordly progress of the albatross, while the tall ship, cradled on rolling billows each three times its length, the swell of some exhausted gale, and circled by immensity, is lulled by dying murmurs of Antarctic storm.
To describe the frigate-bird (Atagen Aquila), we will translate some paragraphs from the chapter of Michelet's L'Oiseau entitled " Le Triomphe de l'Aile." Michelet seems certainly to have thought hyperbole at times well suited to the subject. Without disputing this, it may be well to say that eight or ten feet as the expanse of the frigate-bird's wings is probably a nearer estimate than the fourteen of our author :—" This is the little eagle of the sea, chief of the winged race, the hardy mariner that never furls his sail, the monarch of the tempest, disdainful of all dangers the man-of-war, or frigate-bird. We have reached the end of the series which began with wingless birds. Here we have the bird that is nothing else but wing. Speak not of his body,—no larger than a cock, with those prodigious wings extending 14 ft. ! Flight, the great problem, is hero not merely solved ; it is transcended even, for flying seems superfluous. A bird like this, upborne by such supports, need only let himself be waftod. Does a gale arise P He Boars until he finds tranquillity. The poet's fiction, false of all other birds, is by no means a mere figure as applied to this one. In sober truth, be slumbers on the storm. If he choose to ply his wings in earnest, all distance is annulled. He breaks his fast at Senegal, dines in America. Or, should he wish to spend more time, and loiter by the way, there is nothing to pre- vent him ; he will keep flying through the night as long as may be needful, mare of his repose—on what P Upon his mighty, moveless pinion. Let him but unfold it, the breeze alone will take the whole fatigue of travel, the wind, his zealous servitor, will haste to rock his cradle Oh ! then it is that envy takes us, when in the glowing azure of the tropics, sole object in the desert sky, at altitudes incredible and almost lost to view, the sable bird proceeds triumphant in the solitude. At most, a little lower, a snowy wanderer sails across with lighteome grace.
It is the tropic-bird Looking at him near, we see he has no feet. At least, they are quite short, and webbed, so that he cannot walk or perch. With a formidable beak, he lacks the talons of a true sea-eagle. Mock eagle, though superior to the tree in boldness as in power of wing, he yet has not its strength or its inevitable clutch. Strike and kill he can; but can he grasp P His vast magnificent array of wing becomes on land a danger and encumbrance. To launch himself upon the air, he needs a strong breeze or an elevated place,—a ridge or crag Surprised upon flat sand, upon the shoals and reefs where oftentimes he stays, the frigate is defenceless ; strike then and threaten as he may, he is knocked over with a stick This creature, then, so finely armed and winged, surpassing all in vision, flight, and courage, lives but a trembling and pre- carious life. He would starve, did he not diligently seek a caterer to swindle for a livelihood. His plan—alas ! a sorry shift—is to attack the booby, a heavy, timorous bird, but skilful as a fisher. The frigate, who is no bigger, pursues him, and striking him with his beak upon the neck, makes him disgorge. This passes in the air ; before the fish has fallen, he catches it it its descent When in full vigour, they rest little on the land, but live like clouds, ceaselessly floating on gigantic wings from one world to the other, ready for adventure, and piercing with inexorable gaze the infinite of heaven, the infinite of waters. Prince of all habitants of air is this one, ever on the wing. Prince of all navigators also, ever without a haven. Earth and sea to him are almost equally forbidden. He is a lifelong exile. We need not envy him. Here below no life is truly free. No pinion, flight, career, is ample or sublime enough. The mightiest is thraldom. Others there surely are for which the spirit waits, for which it prays and hopes,- 'Wings beyond our mortal strife ! Wings in unconfined life !' "
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