THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE JUNK O' POIiK. 35 



you with their great round, liquid eyes, or go tiptoeing about 

 the floor with an audible patter of their soft feet. 



Having no hind toe, and being unused to spreading their 

 feet upon a level surface, they walk unsteadily on the outer 

 joints of their toes, bending forward with awkward bobs, and 

 partly spreading their wings to balance themselves. I have 

 never seen one of those I have had in captivity try to fly, 

 though I have had a dozen of them at a time moving about 

 like dusky little shadows. But for the impossibility of get- 

 ting them the proper food, and for their rank, oily smell, they 

 would make pretty pets. 



All sea-birds keep their feathers well oiled to exclude the 

 water, but the petrels and their near relatives are provided 

 with an oil that has an odor quite unmistakable and not 

 attractive. In addition to what is used upon the feathers, 

 the Leach's petrel has in its stomach from a teaspoonful to 

 a tablespoonful of heavy, oily liquid, exceedingly limpid and 

 of an unpleasant odor. He can disgorge this at will, and 

 sometimes, in captivity at least, becomes much bedraggled 

 with it. The use of this supply is hard to determine. 



How the petrels with their weak, webbed feet, which seem 

 wholly unfit for such work, can dig such holes in the hard 

 earth of our outer islands is a mystery. Of course the holes 

 remain from one year to another, so that unless a colony is 

 largely increased it is not necessary to dig new ones ; but I 

 think they have a helper whose services have received little 

 credit in books. All our outer islands are overrun with field- 

 mice, whose holes are found on all sides. On landing on an 

 uninhabited island, almost the first thing one notices is the 

 scampering of mice through the short grass. It seems likely 

 that the petrels often take possession of these mouse-holes, 

 enlarging them to meet their own needs. 



