BIRD NOTES AFIELD 



mightiest birds of flight), the fulmars and shearwaters, which 

 are about the size of an average gull, and the little petrels, 

 mites scarcely larger than a swallow. All these birds are 

 masters of the sea. The fiercest gale does not daunt them, and 

 they scorn any resting-place save the waves. During calm 

 weather they are at a disadvantage, since their wings are used 

 chiefly as sails with which they climb upon the wind, and I 

 have seen albatrosses swimming about on the glassy surface 

 of the ocean seemingly unable to arise. 



The fulmars, colored like gulls, might well be confounded 

 with them were it not for the curious indentations of the beak 

 and the two nostril tubes surmounting it. One species, which 

 breeds in great numbers along Alaskan cliffs, spends the winter 

 upon our coast. 



There is something pathetic about so slight a thing as a 

 petrel in mid-ocean. I know of nothing which so impresses 

 one with the loneliness and desolation of the sea as to find one 

 of these frail, graceful little creatures hovermg about a ship at 

 nightfall, just as a storm is threatening. But sympathy is 

 wasted upon a being who revels in tempests, and who delights 

 in courting death by hovering upon the very edge of the wildest 

 breakers. They are known to the sailors as Mother Carey's 

 chickens and are considered birds of evil omen. Two species 

 are found on our coast, both breeding upon the Farallon 

 Islamds, — Leach's and the ashy petrel. 



The next order of water birds embraces all those which 

 have not only the three front toes connected by webs, but also 

 the hind toe joined to the others in like manner. They are 

 called the totipalmates and include the cormorants and peli- 

 cans, representatives of both of which are common along our 



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