50 W. BICKERTON NOTES ON BIRDS 



hooked beak, webbed feet, and long wings — all of wliicli are 

 readily seen in our specimen now Ijefore you. 



It may be mentioned, in passing, that the ordinary stormy 

 petrel (Procellaria pelagica) is the smallest of our British web- 

 footed birds, and is the bird known to sailors as " Mother 

 Carey's Cliicken." 



Leach's petrel was first discovered as a British liird on the 

 lonely group of rocks known as St. Kilda, away out in the 

 Atlantic Ocean beyond the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. This 

 was in 1818. In 1847 it was found breeding at St. Kilda, and 

 subsequently on North Rona and several other islands of the 

 Outer Hebrides. In 1886 its egg was obtained by Mr. R. J. 

 Ussher from one of the Blasquets, off the coast of Kerry, in 

 Ireland — the most westerly laud, with the exception of Iceland, 

 included in the continent of Europe. St. Kilda, however, 

 continues to be its most famous breeding-place in our area, or, 

 indeed, in all Europe. Of this species Mr. Dixon says : " Diu'iug 

 the non-breeding season it wanders vast distances from land, 

 sleeping and resting on the sea when tired, following ships for 

 miles, fluttering along close to the ocean, now down into the 

 trough of the wave, anon skimming over the crest to half-fly, 

 half -run, with patting feet, down the smooth surface of the next. 

 Except during the breeding season, this petrel is not very 

 gregarious ; it may often be seen in parties of perhaps half- 

 a-dozen, scattered over a considerable surface of water. The 

 exact nature of the food of this species is apparently unknown. 

 It is said, in a vague and general way, to feed on crustaceans 

 and small molluscs, and the scraps of refvise cast from passing 

 vessels, but birds which I have dissected contained similar 

 substances to those found in the fulmar — a nearly clear oil, 

 mingled with the jaws of cuttlefish and scraps of sorrel. The 

 fork-tailed petrel resorts to its breeding- stations to nest in June. 

 Although gregarious during this period, its colonies are never so 

 large as those of the fulmar. Most probably the bird pairs for 

 life, and returns season by season to certain spots to rear its 

 young." And to quote Mr. Dixon again : " This petrel is not 

 seen abroad much at its breeding-places during daylight ; all 

 day long the little birds skidk in their burrows, but with the 

 approach of night they begin to sally forth from their retreats 

 and nests, and their fluttering forms may be seen flitting to and 

 fro in the deepening gloom, backwards and forwards, to and 

 from the sea. The fork-tailed petrel is not a very noisy bird ; 

 those that I dragged from their nests uttered a few squeaking 

 notes ; but at night the species becomes more garrulous." 



So entirely pelagic a bird, though a British breeding-bird, is 

 never seen inland except against its will. It does not come, like 

 so many other of our rarer visitors, by the chances — or shall 

 I say the mischances — of its migratory journeys. During 

 westerly and south-westerly gales of exceptional violence it is 

 blown quite out of its reckoning — sometimes even right across 



