7IO PETTICH APS— PEWIT 



sailors, and is widely believed to be the harbinger of bad weather ; 

 but seamen hardly discriminate between this and others nearly 

 resembling it in appearance, such as Leach's or the Fork-tailed 

 Petrel, Gymochorea leucorrhoa, a rather larger but less common bird, 

 and Wilson's Petrel, Oceanites oceanicus, the type of the Family 

 Oceanitidse mentioned above, which is more common on the American 

 side. But it is in the Southern Ocean that Petrels most abound, 

 both as species and as individuals. The Cape-Pigeon or Pintado 

 Petrel, Daption capensis, is one that has long been well known, while 

 those who voyage to or from Australia, whatever be the route 

 they take, are certain to meet with many more species, some, as 

 Ossifraga gigantea, as large as Albatroses, and several of them 

 called by sailors by a variety of choice names, generally having 

 reference to the strong smell of musk emitted by the birds, among 

 which that of "Stink-pot" is not the most opprobrious. None of 

 the Petrels are endowed with any brilliant colouring — sooty-black, 

 grey of various tints (one of which approaches to and is often called 

 " blue "), and Avhite being the only hues their plumage exhibits ; 

 but their graceful flight, and their companionship when no other 

 life is visible around a lonely vessel oh the widest of oceans, give 

 them an interest to beholders, though this is too often marred by 

 the wanton destruction dealt out by brutal or thoughtless persons 

 who thus seek to break the tediousness of a long voyage. 



PETTICHAPS, the name under which a bird, supposed to be 

 that now commonly known as the Gar den- Warbler, Sylvia salicaria 

 or hortensis, was sent from Yorkshii-e by Jessop to Willughby 

 {Ornithologia, p. 158), and hence more or less frequently applied to 

 that species; or, with the qualification of "Lesser," to the Chiff- 

 chaff. The name was known in Lancashire a century later 

 (Latham, Gen. Synojps. ii. p. 413), but seems never to have been in 

 general use in England. In 1873 the present writer obtained 

 evidence (Yarrell, Br. B. ed. 4,i. p. 415) that it had not become 

 obsolete near Sheffield where Jessop lived. It is also given as the 

 name of a bird by Clare the Northamptonshire poet. 



PEWEE, so called from its drawling note,^ a well-known 

 North- American bird, Contopus virens, one of the Tyrannidx (Tyrant- 

 bird), extremely abundant in the eastern side of the continent, and 

 represented by other species in the remainder of it. 



PEWIT, anciently Puet, the ordinary name of what is called in 

 books the Black-headed Gull, Larus ridibiindus, in the inland 

 localities affected by it for breeding. The great Pewit-pool at Nor- 

 bury in Staffordshire visited by Eay and Willughby, 14th May 1662, 



^ This is said to be in sharp contrast with that of its relative called in 

 North America the Pewit. 



