The mode of life of the petrels corresponds but little with their external beauty; they are in fact the crows of the ocean, and live upon the dead animal substances floating on its surface. Wherever the carcase of a whale, borne along by the current, covers the sea with a long stripe of putrid oil, they are seen feasting in the polluted waters. All petrels have the remarkable faculty of spouting oil of a very offensive smell, from their nostrils when alarmed, and this apparently as a means of defence.
The Albatross (Diomedea exulans) is the monarch of the high seas; the picture of a hero, who, under every storm of adverse fortune, preserves the immoveable constancy of an undaunted heart. Proud and majestic, he swims along in his own native element, and without ever touching the water with his pinions, rises with the rising billow, and falls with the falling wave. It is truly wonderful how he bids defiance to the fury of the unshackled elements, and how quietly he faces the gale. "He seems quite at home," say the sailors; and indeed this expression is perfectly characteristic of his graceful ease as he hovers over the agitated ocean.
Wandering Albatross.
The albatross exceeds the swan in size, attains a weight of from 12lbs. to 28lbs., and extends his wings from ten to thirteen feet. His plumage is white and black, harmonising with the wave-crest and the storm-cloud. For weeks and months together he is seen to follow the course of a ship; but, according to Mr. Harvey (Sea Side Book), "the time he can remain on the wing seems to have been much exaggerated, for although, like the gull and the petrel, he is no diving-bird, he swims with the greatest ease; and notwithstanding the enormous length of his pinions, knows well how to rise again into the air. He is indeed unable to take wing from a narrow deck, but when he wishes to rise from the sea, he runs along flapping the waters until he has acquired the necessary impetus, or meets with a wave of a sufficient height, from whose lofty crest he starts as from a rocky pinnacle, and resumes his extensive flight over an immense expanse of ocean." A short-winged species frequents the waters of Kamtschatka and Japan; but the wandering albatross (D. exulans) belongs more particularly to the southern hemisphere, being rarely seen to the north of 30° S. lat., and appearing more frequently as the higher latitudes are approached. The regions of storms—the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn—are his favourite resorts, and all travellers know that the southern point of Africa is not far distant as soon as the albatrosses show themselves in larger numbers. These birds are the vultures of the ocean; their crooked sharp-edged beak is better adapted to lacerate a lifeless prey, than to seize upon the rapid fish as it darts swiftly along below the surface of the waters. From a vast distance they smell the floating carcase of a whale, and soon alight in considerable numbers upon the giant carrion. They also feed upon the large cephalopods that inhabit mid-ocean, and remains of these molluscs are generally found in their stomach. The Auckland and Campbell islands seem to be two of their favourite breeding-stations. When Sir James Ross visited these secluded groups, the birds were so assiduously breeding as to allow themselves to be taken with the hand. The nest is built of sand mixed with dried leaves and grasses, generally eighteen inches high, with a diameter of twenty-seven inches at the surface, and of six feet at the base. While breeding, the snow-white head and neck of the bird project above the grasses, and betray it from afar. On endeavouring to drive it from its eggs it defends itself valiantly, snapping with its beak. Its greatest enemy is a fierce raptorial gull (Lestris antarcticus), which is always on the look-out, and, as soon as the albatross leaves the nest, shoots down upon it to steal the eggs.
Swift flies the albatross, but fancy travels with still more rapid wings through the realms of space, and leads us suddenly from the lone islands of the Pacific to the north of another hemisphere. Saint Kilda rises before us—a glorious sight when the last rays of the setting sun, as he slowly sinks upon the ocean, light up with dazzling splendour the towering cliffs of the island, which one might almost fancy to be some huge volcano newly emerged from the deep, or the impregnable bulwark of some enchanted land. St. Kilda, one of the most striking examples of the grandest rock-scenery, plunges on all sides perpendicularly into the sea, so that although six miles in circumference, it affords but one single landing-place, accessible only in fair weather. Four of the promontories are perforated, and as many large caverns are formed, through which the sea rolls its heaving billows. From the eastern extremity, which rises nearly perpendicularly to the height of 1380 feet, and is supposed to be the loftiest precipice in Britain, the view is of indescribable sublimity. Far below, the long heavy swell of the ocean is seen climbing up the dark rock, whose base is clothed with sheets of snow-white foam. In many places the naked rock disappears under the myriads of sea-birds sitting upon their nests; the air is literally clouded with them, and the water seems profusely dotted with the larger fowl, the smaller ones being nearly invisible on account of the distance. Every narrow ledge is thickly covered with kittiwakes, auks, and guillemots; all the grassy spots are tenanted by the fulmar, and honey-combed by myriads of puffins; while close to the water's edge on the wet rocks, which are hollowed out into deep recesses, sit clusters of cormorants, erect and motionless, like so many unclean spirits, guarding the entrance of some gloomy cave.
Black Guillemot.
On rolling down a large stone from the summit, a strange scene of confusion ensues. Here, falling like a thunderbolt on some unfortunate fulmar sitting upon its nest, it crushes the poor creature in an instant; then rolling down the crags, and cutting deep furrows in the grassy slopes, it scatters in dismay the dense groups of auks and guillemots. Its progress all along is marked by the clouds of birds, which affrighted shoot out from the precipice to avoid the fate to which nevertheless many fall a prey, until at length it reaches the bottom along with its many victims. The scared tenants of the rock now return to their resting-places, and all is again comparatively quiet.
