Shearwaters are `cousins' of albatrosses. Like albatrosses, shearwaters are members of Order Procellariiformes (all have external tubular nostrils placed on the top or at the sides of the upper mandible, and are thus called "tubenoses"). Most of these species are truly pelagic seabirds, and return to land only to breed.
Among the most famous of albatrosses is the bird in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1834), which, for reasons unexplained, was killed by the Mariner.
"... And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work `em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!..."
After the murder of the albatross, the Ancient Mariner and his shipmates were cursed and encountered various misfortunes - drought, dreadful spirits and death - eventually only the Mariner survived. Thereafter he wandered about with "long grey beard and glittering eye", and told his story to all who would listen... perhaps a warning for modern-day mariners who might be inclined to abuse the albatrosses' cousins.
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