Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/243

233 measured sixty feet in length, with a stem, at the thickest part, of three inches in diameter. On the root was a variety of Asterias, Beroe, and other Molluscae. In this parallel Procellaria Capensis and P. Fuliginosa began to be common, and I captured several with a small hook and line. In passing between the mainland and the Falkland Islands, November 5, an indescribable and piercing chillness told us we were drawing near the dreary and inhospitable regions of Cape Horn, of which in a few days longer we became fully aware.

While within the parallels of 50 degrees and 59 degrees south latitude, I caught sixty-nine specimens of Diomedeae, consisting of D. exulans, fuliginosa, and chlororhynchos; the last, though a smaller bird than the first, reigns lord paramount over the rest, and compels them all to flee at his approach. It is stated by most authors that these birds are taken with the greatest ease during calm weather, but I have invariably found the reverse to hold good; it was only during the driving gusts of a storm that I could secure them, and on such occasions they fight voraciously about the bait, the hook often being received into the stomach. The appearance of these birds is grand and majestic; the largest which I ever saw measuring twelve feet four inches, from tip to tip of the extended wings, and four feet from the point of the beak to the end of the tail. As respects their flight, the same remarks apply to all the species. When sitting on the water their wings are raised exactly like a swan; when feeding they are somewhat higher, with a constantly tremulous motion like those of the hawk tribe; and when elevating themselves from the water to soar in the air they first walk the water, skimming the surface with the points of their pinions for the distance of several hundred yards, before they seem able to raise themselves, which they finally do with the utmost grace, and with scarcely any apparent movement of their wings. They are of a bold and savage disposition, which is especially displayed when they are captured.

Of Larus and Procellaria I caught many by the same means—a hook baited with fat pork. In these latitudes a