Seabird sea and breeding in isolated colonies. However, some seabirds, particularly, the albatrosses and gulls, have broken into popular consciousness. The albatrosses have been described as "the most legendary of birds", and have a variety of myths and legends associated with them, and today it is widely considered unlucky to harm them, although the notion that sailors believed that is a myth that derives from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", in which a sailor is punished for killing an albatross by having to wear its corpse around his neck. "Instead of the Cross the Albatross"
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket believing the novel was an autobiographical narrative by Pym. In addition to historical sources, Poe was influenced by other writers. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a general influence, and scenes of Pym and Dirk Peters in a cave echo scenes in Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe", which many reviewers noted at the time, including London publications such as the "Court Gazette" and the "Torch". The ship of corpses recalls the legend of the "Flying Dutchman", a ship which is cursed and unable to return home. Poe also incorporated the theories of Reynolds and John Cleves