328 WEB-FOOTED BIRDS. 



The Stormy Petrel breeds in the Orkneys and Hebrides, in the 

 holes and clefts of inaccessible cliifs impending over the sea, proba- 

 bly also on the American coast or its islands, and are at this time so 

 engaged in incubation as to suffer themselves to be taken off their 

 nests by hand. Thus the females constantly hiding in their nest& 

 when on shore, have been supposed nocturnal in their general 

 habits, while at the same time the males are abroad throughout the 

 whole day. The eggs of this species are said to be 2, of a soiled 

 white, with a circle of ferruginous freckles around the larger end. 



The manners of this bird are so precisely similar with those of 

 Wilson's Stormy Petrel, the species having, till lately, been con- 

 sidered as one, that what has been advanced in the history of the 

 former is equally applicable to the present. This species, as well as 

 the two former, according to Audubon, indeed breed in the sandy 

 islands off Cape Sable in Nova Scotia. 



Length of the Stormy Petrel about 6 inches. With the head, 

 back, wings and tail of a dull black ; below sooty brown. A wide 

 transverse band of white upon the rump. Scapulars and seconda- 

 ries tipped with white. Tail and quills black. Bill and feet wholly 

 black. Iris brown. — In the young the tints are darker, the edges 

 of the feathers sooty, or somewhat rufaus y but in all other respects 

 they resemble the adults.. 



if ' 



PETRELS. (Procellaria, Lin.) 



In these birds the bill is about as long as the head, robust, broad, 

 hard, sub-cylindric and sharp on the edges, depressed at the base, 

 compressed and suddenly swelled towards the point: the upper 

 mandible deeply seamed each side, strongly hooked and acute at the 

 tip ; the lower shorter and narrower, angular beneath, truncated at 

 the end. Nostrils united in a common tube on the top the bill. 

 Tongue entire, conic. Feet stout; naked space above the knee 

 small ; tarsus shorter than the middle toe ; webs large and entire ; 

 the hind toe merely a thick and blunt nail. Wings very long and 

 acute ; 1st primary longest Tail of 14 feathers, rounded, or wedge- 

 shaped. 



