18 PROCELLARIID.E. 



months old, is not quite so dark in colour ; edges of wing-coverts rusty brown, and no 

 white on the margins of the tertials." 



The Stormy Petrel is common all round the shores of Great Britain, though rarely 

 seen except by sailors. Occasionally, however, they are driven in shore by heavy gales 

 of wind, and picked up in a miserably exhausted condition. Dresser says : — " This 

 inhabitant of the ocean, appearing only to occur about the land during the breeding season 

 and when driven in by stress of weather, has a tolerably extensive range, being foiind 

 throughout the Atlantic Ocean, and having also been met with on the east coast of Africa." 



In the winter of 1882 I saw the specimen from which Plate IV. is painted, feebly flapping 

 along the Thames off Greenwich Pier, and with the aid of a waterman succeeded in capturing 

 it.* The poor little thing lived some days by sucking its feathers, which I had plentifully 

 besprinkled with oil, but finally succumbed, and is now in my collection of British birds. 



That charming naturalist Charles Waterton says, in his explanatory index, that the 

 Stormy Petrel is "too well known to need description." He, however, proves the fallacy 

 of this off-hand treatment of the subject by mentioning, in his ' Wanderings,' that it is 

 only seen when a heavy gale is blowing, and that "when the storm is over it appears no 

 more." Now, though no bird is more thoroughly at home in bad weather than a " Mother 

 Carey," yet it is by no means consistent with facts to say it is only seen then. Indeed 

 at sea the opposite is rather the case, for in rough weather the Crustacea and Mollusca, 

 and other minute organisms, upon which the birds feed, are brought to the surface by 

 the action of the waves. 



Now this friendly office of turning up food is also performed by the moving ship, 

 especially in the case of a paddle or screw, and naturally more appreciated when the 

 sea is smooth, and there is no other way of obtaining these submerged delicacies. It is 

 also then that the host of eagerly following birds are so keenly on the look-out for 

 all scraps and refuse that are thrown them, or fall from the ship itself. When a vessel 

 is becalmed or at anchor I have seen them settle in flocks alongside, prepared for a 

 regular square meal off anything they can get. Eeferring to their rapacity, Yarrell 

 says: — "On examining the inside of a Stormy Petrel, Mr. Couch found about half an 

 inch of a common tallow candle, of a size so disproportionate to the bill and throat of 

 the bird that it seemed wondeful how it could have been able to swallow it." Thus, then, 

 it stands to reason the finer the weather the more dependent are the birds on the 

 inventions of man for their daily food, and consequently the more seen by them. I am 



•'■■ In March, 1886, the same Greenwich wateiinan handed me a live Red-legged Partridge that he found swimming 

 about off the pier. 



