STORM-PETREL 5oD 
twilight its dusky form may be seen flitting rapidly to and 
fro and reminding one not a little of a bat on the wing. 
But out on the ocean its characteristic little figure may be 
observed by daylight coursing over the crests of the waves 
and at times lightly tipping the water with its long slender 
feet dangling at full length. Such amovement gives one 
the impression that the bird is walking on the waves with 
raised and fluttering wings. 
Fic. 65.—STORM-PETREL. 
It seldom rises any height in the air and in boisterous 
weather will seek shelter in the trough of the mighty, 
rolling billow. Its flight is swift, graceful, and remarkably 
buoyant, full of twists and sudden swerves, and at a little 
distance the bird resembles a swallow ‘ hawking’ for gnats, 
&c., low over the surface of the water. But if a.Storm- 
Petrel, as it flits over the deep, be kept in view and brought 
up close with a powerful prism-binocular, it will be seen to 
move for the most part with a strong, steady and regular up 
and down beat of the wings, resembling a Tern in hurried 
flight. 
Far out, perhaps a thousand miles from land, when no 
other bird-life is visible, the little Petrel, clad in its ominous 
browny-black plumage, may be seen following 1n the wake 
of a great vessel. It may continue in its course for weeks, 
apparently not staying its flight from darkness to dawn. To 
the superstitious it is a bird of ill-omen, its presence o’er 
