Samuel Coleridge's opium addiction caused him serious gynaecomastia (development of abnormal breast tissue in men) and erectile dysfunction that led his lover, Dorothy Wordsworth, to describe him as "one whose realm is not that of the land twixt the sheets".

Coleridge's concern however was not for the shag but the albatross, which is now in danger of extinction. Its plight is caused by industrial long-line fishing and worsened by slow reproduction rates (one egg per clutch) and apparent monogamy. 90% of all bird species are said not to cheat on their partners, although they are serial monogamists (with only one partner at a time) rather than "Till death do us partists".

This belief, however, is contested by animal behaviourist Kate Huyvaert, who studied the Waved Albatross (Diomedea irrorata) on the Galapagos Island of Española. DNA paternity tests showed that one out of every four chicks tested did not match the fingerprint of the male bird that was caring for it in the nest. Observation of mating habits also revealed that one female mated 85 times with 49 different partners in seven weeks. So it's not so much a case of "how" but "who's your father" and it certainly wasn't Coleridge.