THE STORMY PETREL. 



''The Stormy Petrel, mamma, 

 is a very interesting bird. I 

 should like very much to be in 

 a ship and see him walking on 

 the water, wouldn't you ?" 



Mamma, who thought of the 

 apostle St. Peter, shook her 

 head. 



"You must be mistaken, Bob- 

 bie," said she. "I never heard 

 of a bird that could walk on the 

 water." 



"Well, that's what my maga- 

 zine says," replied Bobbie, "and 

 I am sure Birds ought to know. 

 Listen!" and Bobbie, stopping 

 to spell a word now and then, 

 and to ask the meaning of many, 

 managed to inform his mother 

 what the Stormy Petrel had to say 

 about himself. 



"Though I am the smallest of 

 the web-footed birds I am a 

 great traveler," read Bobbie. 

 "Everywhere over the entire 

 surface of the watery globe you 

 will find members of my order; 

 far north in the Arctic seas and 

 away down in the Southern 

 oceans. We love the sea, and 

 the food which is thrown up by 

 the waves. Anything oily or 

 greasy we particularly like. No 

 matter how stormy the weather^ 

 nor how high the billows roll, 

 you will see us little fel- 

 lows, with outstretched wings, 



sweeping along in the hollow 

 trough of the sea. From one side 

 of a ship to the other, now far 

 ahead, then a great way behind, 

 catching up easily with the 

 ship though making ten knots 

 an hour." 



"What is a knot, mamma?" 

 querried Bobbie. 



"A knot means a sailors' mile. 

 An engineer says his locomotive 

 runs at the rate of so many miles 

 an hour; a seaman says so many 

 'knots.' A knot is something 

 more than our English mile." 



"The sailors call us 'Mother 

 Carey's Chickens.' Because we 

 walk and run on the surface of 

 the water they think us uncanny, 

 foretelling bad weather, or some- 

 thing else bad for the crew, 

 when — let me whisper it into 

 your ear — it is ouf outstretched 

 wings which uphold us, our 

 wings as well as our broad, 

 flat feet. 



There is something else I 

 want to tell you though before I 

 close. Think of making a lamp 

 out of a bird's body ! That is 

 what they do with a Stormy PetreVs 

 body on a certain island in the 

 Atlantic ocean. They find our 

 carcass so oily from the food we 

 eat, that all they have to do is to 

 draw a wick through our body, 

 light it, and lo they have a lamp. 



88 



