ALBATROSS, s. The great sea-bird (Diomedea exulans, L.), from the Port. alcatraz, to which the forms used by Hawkins and Dampier, and by Flacourt (according to Marcel Devic) closely approach. [Alcatras 'in this sense altered to albi-, albe-, albatross (perhaps with etymological reference to albus, "white," the albatross being white, while the alcatras was black.') N.E.D. s.v.] The Port. word properly means 'a pelican.' A reference to the latter word in our Glossary will show another curious misapplication. Devic states that alcatruz in Port. means 'the bucket of a Persian wheel,'[[26]] representing the Ar. al-ḳādūs, which is again from κάδος. He supposes that the pelican may have got this name in the same way that it is called in ordinary Ar. saḳḳa, 'a water-carrier.' It has been pointed out by Dr Murray, that the alcatruz of some of the earlier voyagers, e.g., of Davis below, is not the Diomedea, but the Man-of-War (or Frigate) Bird (Fregatus aquilus). Hawkins, at p. 187 of the work quoted, describes, without naming, a bird which is evidently the modern albatross. In the quotation from Mocquet again, alcatruz is applied to some smaller sea-bird. The passage from Shelvocke is that which suggested to Coleridge "The Ancient Mariner."

1564.—"The 8th December we ankered by a small Island called Alcatrarsa, wherein at our going a shoare, we found nothing but sea-birds, as we call them Ganets, but by the Portugals called Alcatrarses, who for that cause gave the said Island the same name."—Hawkins (Hak. Soc.), 15.

1593.—"The dolphins and bonitoes are the houndes, and the alcatrarces the hawkes, and the flying fishes the game."—Ibid. 152.

1604.—"The other foule called Alcatrarzi is a kind of Hawke that liueth by fishing. For when the Bonitos or Dolphines doe chase the flying fish vnder the water ... this Alcatrarzi flyeth after them like a Hawke after a Partridge."—Davis (Hak. Soc.), 158.

c. 1608-10.—"Alcatraz sont petis oiseaux ainsi comme estourneaux."—Mocquet, Voyages, 226.

1672.—"We met with those feathered Harbingers of the Cape ... Albetrosses ... they haue great Bodies, yet not proportionate to their Wings, which mete out twice their length."—Fryer, 12.

1690.—"They have several other Signs, whereby to know when they are near it, as by the Sea Fowl they meet at Sea, especially the Algatrosses, a very large long-winged Bird."—Dampier, i. 531.

1719.—"We had not had the sight of one fish of any kind, since we were come Southward of the Streights of Le Mair, nor one sea-bird, except a disconsolate black Albitross, who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us as if he had lost himself, till Hatley (my second Captain) observing, in one of his melancholy fits, that this bird was always hovering near us, imagin'd from his colour, that it might be some ill omen.... But be that as it would, he after some fruitless attempts, at length shot the Albitross, not doubting (perhaps) that we should have a fair wind after it...."—Shelvocke's Voyage, 72, 73.

1740.—"... a vast variety of sea-fowl, amongst which the most remarkable are the Penguins; they are in size and shape like a goose, but instead of wings they have short stumps like fins ... their bills are narrow like those of an Albitross, and they stand and walk in an erect posture. From this and their white bellies, Sir John Narborough has whimsically likened them to little children standing up in white aprons."—Anson's Voyage, 9th ed. (1756), p. 68.

1754.—"An albatrose, a sea-fowl, was shot off the Cape of Good Hope, which measured 17½ feet from wing to wing."—Ives, 5.