The whaling stations of South Georgia are visited by many varieties of seabirds, which congregate there in hundreds of thousands for the offal which finds its way into the sea. By acting as scavengers they serve a very useful purpose. Cape pigeons thickly cover the water for hundreds of square yards and present a really extraordinary sight. They chatter and squabble incessantly. Terns flit gracefully about, never settling on the water, but making occasional short dives for morsels. Wilson petrels flit like fairies over the surface, their feet touching, but their bodies never entering the sea. Dominican gulls, skua gulls, mollymauks and giant petrels also come about in hundreds, for there is food in abundance in the harbours. There are about twenty-four species of birds in South Georgia, including a wagtail (_Anthus antarcticus_), which is found on the lower slopes of the island about the beaches. The Wandering Albatross (_Diomedea exulans_) is the most stately and graceful of all flying birds, yet when seen ashore or at close range has a curiously foolish expression. It nests on the grassy promontories of the main island and on some of the smaller outlying islets. The nests are pyramidal mounds composed of tussock grass, mud and a few feathers. The hen lays one egg, which the parent birds take turns in incubating. The chicks are pretty white fluffy things, which later take on a brown adult plumage. As the bird increases in size so the brown colouring gives way to a white phase, the very old ones being almost entirely white. The nesting season commences about the middle of January. Wilkins observed that inter-mating took place between birds of neighbouring nests, a male bird wandering off to visit an already mated female. This usually took place when the husband bird was out at sea in search of food, but occasionally it was observed that the apparently true mate would appear on the scene, and, discovering the intruder, would show fight, and a battle would ensue. This, however, was never a serious matter, and was mainly an exhibition of side-stepping, feints and vicious snaps of the beaks, but the combatants rarely came to real pecking or blows. The female looked on and kept up a chattering noise with the bill whilst the fight lasted. Only once was a female seen to leave nest and egg unprotected. In a moment a skua had swept down and thrust his beak into the egg. The albatross does not nest on the north-east coast of South Georgia farther south than Possession Bay. The Sooty Albatross (_Phœbetria palpebrata_) rivals, or even excels the “Wanderer” in gracefulness of flight. It is not very common in South Georgia, those found being at isolated points on the north-western coast.