Sea Swallows 
usual feelings. Probably their temperament is 
as sunny as the bright skies in which they 
calmly sail or speed their dizzy course the live- 
long day ; as eager and buoyant as the spark- 
ling, dancing waves that roll beneath their feet 
throughout the summer. 
The return trip was enlivened by a pair of 
stormy petrels—‘‘ Mother Carey’s chickens ’’— 
flitting hither and thither, quite in butterfly 
fashion, near the boat, or skimming the ocean’s 
wavy pavement in eager search of palatable 
morsels. The species I saw was one of the 
smallest—about the size of a sparrow—but pre- 
senting a rather large appearance by its great 
extent of wings. When hovering near the 
water it is not so easily discovered, as it is dusky, 
almost black, throughout, save a conspicuous 
spot of white upon the back. The petrels are 
among the most oceanic birds, found hundreds 
of miles out to sea, and probably never going on 
shore except to nest. They are supposed to 
appear as the harbinger, or else in the wake, of 
astorm. ‘The nest is made in holes in the 
ground, sometimes beneath the surface of the 
beach, under some large rock, and sometimes 
on the side of lofty cliffs, when it is a long hori- 
zontal excavation like that of the bank swallows, 
135 
