Sometimes the Albatrosses form a sea-dish, and are eaten by the crew; but it is seldom they are used for this purpose in the present day, although formerly they were caught and esteemed for that purpose, as a change to the miserable salt junk. Captain Cook mentions, in his first voyage, the method used to prepare the birds before cooking them, and passes much commendation on the dish. “The Albatrosses,” he observes, “we skinned, and, having soaked them in salt water until the morning, we parboiled them, then, throwing away the liquor, stewed them in a very little fresh water till they were tender, and had them served up with savoury sauce: thus dressed, the dish was universally commended, and we ate of it very heartily, even when there was fresh pork upon the table.” I was not aware, until I perused the entertaining “Fragments of Voyages and Travels,” by Captain Hall, that the Albatross was ever found so near the equator. “On the 24th of May,” he writes, “the day before crossing the equator, a number of those huge birds, the Albatrosses, were seen soaring over the face of the waters, and the flying fish, when rising into the air to avoid their natural enemies, the dolphin and bonito, were frequently caught by these poaching birds, to the very reasonable disappointment of the sporting fish below, on whose manor they were trespassing. These intruders proceeded not altogether with impunity, however, for we hooked several of them, who, confident in their own sagacity and strength of wing, swooped eagerly at the baited hooks, towed far astern of the ship, and were thus drawn on board, screaming and flapping their wings in a very ridiculous plight.” On the 23d of July, 1832, in latitude 40° 16′ south, longitude 46° 45′ east, an Albatross was hooked; and when about to haul it in, the line (which was out its whole length) accidentally slipped; the bird consequently swallowed hook, bait, and a portion of the line; the remainder hung out from his bill. He was seen about the ship in the afternoon with a long portion of the line pending from the beak. This morning he was seen following the ship, but the length of line which hung from his beak was now reduced to very short dimensions: he had, probably by gradually swallowing, thus reduced it. From this bird being thus marked, we have ascertained that he has followed the ship for two days; and as we have been sailing at the rate of two hundred miles per day, (from the irregular flight of this bird, their actual flight may be correctly quadrupled,) it has followed us in a direct line four hundred miles. How long previously it had been about the ship, or subsequently followed it, we had no means of ascertaining, as the following day none of the Albatrosses had a string pending from the beak: our friend, no doubt, having swallowed the whole of it.