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There is, for instance, the whale-bird, perfectly black on the top of the wings and body, and white underneath. It is, in size, between a Mother Carey and a Molly-hawk, which latter is very nearly as big as an albatross. Ice-birds and Cape-pigeons also fly about us in numbers; the latter are about the size of ordinary pigeons, black, mottled with white on the back, and grey on the breast.
They seemed, though on a much larger scale, to be hanging upon our track, just as a flock of crows hang over the track of a plough in the field, and doubtless for the same reason to pick up the food thrown up by the mighty keel of our ship. Most of them were ice-birds, blue petrels, and whale-birds, with a large admixture of albatrosses and Mother Carey's chickens.
We had killed nothing as yet, except a few eider ducks, and one or two ice-birds the most graceful winged creatures I have ever seen, with immensely long pinions, and plumage of spotless white.
Is there anywhere a sweeter legend than that of the Halcyons, the ice-birds, who love one another so tenderly that when the male becomes enfeebled by age, his mate carries him on her outspread wings whithersoever he will; and the gods, desiring to reward such faithful love, cause the sun to shine more kindly, and still the winds and waves on the "Halcyon days" during which these birds are building their nest and brooding over their young?
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