STORMY PETREL. 
145 
of Coventry, and three near Birmingham. In Berkshire one 
was taken near Newbury. 
In Ireland, as already mentioned, it is indigenous, but is 
usually found, when found, dead inland. 
These birds are made use of by the inhabitants of the 
Ferroe and other islands, to serve for lamps, a wiek of cotton 
or other material being drawn through the body, and when 
lighted it continues to burn till the oil in the bird is con¬ 
sumed. The quantity of oil yielded decreases as the summer 
advances, ’ and at last it fails altogether, probably from their 
falling off in condition, and the supply given to their young, 
they being fed with the same. 
The Stormy Petrel has been kept alive in confinement for 
several months, feeding itself with oil spread for the purpose 
on its feathers. The young have been brought up in con¬ 
finement. 
They are crepuscular and nocturnal in their habits, and 
towards night wander forth accordingly over the ocean. 
This tiny sea-bird, ever on the wing, as well in the serenest 
as in the most tempestuous weather, finds equally its home 
in each and every quarter of the globe. Many are the sad 
tales it could tell of what it has heard and seen, by day and 
by night, in the north, the south, the east, and west. Let 
the imagination, aided by what others have seen and said, set 
the picture faintly before us in its different points of view. 
Now in the north, a thousand miles from land, alone in 
its wanderings over the vast abyss of the unfathomable ocean, 
the depth below as pitchy black as the murky night-cloud 
overhead that will soon enshroud the face of the deep with 
its darksome mantle till the two elements shall be, as it were, 
mingled together in one common gloom, the Petrel careers 
along the driving waves, and revels in the advance of the 
coming storm. Could we be there while not there for the 
very presence of man must take off from the dread solemnity 
which can only in its fullness belong to perfect solitude,—how 
utterly lonely the scene, even in the height of a summer s day! 
and what must it be in the ‘wild midnight’ of the end of the 
year, when the short-lived glories of the arctic solstice, that 
have only gleamed ‘too soon to fleet,’ have withered and waned 
into the long and dreary night of the winter of winters? It 
is indeed in itself the same by day and by night, and yet how 
great the difference. The ‘Northern Lights’ themselves are 
hidden behind a black starless sky, and cutting winds that freeze 
VOL. VIII. L 
