Name: Short-Tailed Albatross
	Left: Unknown
	Habitat: Unknown
	Why Endangered: Unknown

The albatross sometimes follows a ship for days, but is seldom seen resting. It feeds on scraps of food thrown from the ship, or on fish and squid.

Albatrosses come to land only to breed. Thousands of these birds assemble together on remote islands. The female albatross's single egg is white with brown spots. It is laid on bare ground or in a shallow nest and hatches after about 81 days. The young bird has dark, fluffy down. Two species of albatrosses are commonly found along the Pacific Coast of North America.

Sailors have long had strange beliefs about the albatross. Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes some of these beliefs in his poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

Source: World Book