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.