LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAIST PETRELS AND PELICANS. l7l 



the nails being but slightly bent and flat, and, perhaps I may add, its evidently 

 being unaccustomed to this description of locomotion, seemed to be the causes 

 of its helplessness on its feet. 



These birds have been numerous about us for some days past, and their 

 coursing over the water with flitting wings reminds me of the actions of but- 

 terflies about a pool. One of them was swinmiing, or at least, resting on the 

 surface. We have seen this species very frequently, indeed, almost daily, 

 since leaving America, and scarcely any other sea birds, except in the im- 

 mediate vicinity of the islands. It would seem that it scarcely ever visits th(- 

 land, except for the purposes of incubation, and there can hardly be a better 

 comment on its untiring power of wing than the popular fable amongst sea- 

 men, that it carries its eggs and hatches its young while sitting in the water. 

 It does not sail in the continued manner of the gulls and some other sea birds, 

 but moves by rapidly flexing its wings something like a bat, and was continu- 

 ally coursing around and in the wakes of the vessels, generally in considerable 

 numbers, during much the greater part of the time that the expedition was in 

 the Atlantic Ocean. 



The voice of the Wilson petrel when the bird is picking up food 

 from the water is a gentle peeping, which is repeated the more rap- 

 idl}' the more excited the birds become at the abundance of the feast. 

 This is the onlj' sound I have heard them utter on the New Eng- 

 land coast, but various observers have v/ritten of the " twittering " 

 and "cooing" sounds made on the nesting grounds. Wm. Eagle 

 Clarke (1906) speaks of a ''low whistle" and a "harsh screaming- 

 chuckle," and he says that : '' These noises they keep up almost con- 

 tinuously after dark." 



Although Wilson petrel seems to delight in stormy weather, there 

 are times when even its native elements prove too much for it. A 

 great storm raged on the coast of North Carolina on August 28, 29, 

 and 30, 1893, and thousands of these birds were washed ashore dead 

 and dying, unable longer to battle with the waves. The 10 miles 

 of beach from Beaufort Harbor to Cape Lookout was literally 

 strewn with them. The holocaust is described by T. Gilbert Pearson 

 (1899) from information received from several reliable sources. 



I have two birds of this species in my collection that were found 

 floating dead in the water, but how they came to their death I do 

 not know. One had a slit at the corner of the mouth, which may 

 have been caused by the cruel sport in which passengers on vessels 

 sometimes indulge, namel}^ the sport of fishing for these birds with 

 hook and line. Sometimes a line w^ith a button attached is used, 

 and, as this skips along the waves in the wake of the vessel, there is 

 a remote chance of the line becoming entangled with the wing or 

 foot of a petrel. 



When other sources of bait are lacking, petrels have sometimes 

 been used, although one is scarcely large enough to bait two hooks. 

 The superstition among sailors that it is unlucky to kill a " Mother 



