102 THE STORMY PBTRBIv 



more than usually active in picking up various matters from 

 the surface of the water. 



The Stormy Petrels, or Mother Carey's Chickens, breed 

 in great numbers on the rocky shores of the Bahama and 

 the Bermuda Islands, and in some places on the coast of 

 East Florida and Cuba. They breed in communities, like 

 the bank swallows, making their nests in the holes and 

 cavities of the rocks above the sea, returning to feed their 

 young only during the night, with the superabundant oily 

 food from their stomachs. At these times they may be 

 heard making a continued cluttering sound, like frogs, 

 during the whole night. In the day they are silent, and 

 wander widely over the ocean. This easily accounts for the 

 vast distance they are sometimes seen from land, even in 

 the breeding season. The rapidity of their flight is at least 

 equal to the fleetness of our swallows. Calculating this at 

 the rate of one mile per minute, twelve hours would be 

 sufficient to waft them a distance of seven hundred and 

 twenty miles ', but it is probable that the far greater part 

 confine themselves much nearer land during that interesting 

 period. 



ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES. 



In the month of July, while on a voyage from New 

 Orleans to New York, I saw few or none of these birds in 

 the Gulf of Mexico, although our ship was detained there 

 by falms for twenty days, and carried by currents m fiff 



