458 



THE SOOTY PETREL. 



them ; seeming to hold themselves apart as the better 

 bird of the two, peering at one another, and pluming 

 their coats with a sort of dandy satisfaction at their 

 superior brilliancy and glossiness. 



Besides these more common species, there are others 

 rarely found in Britain, being chiefly confined to the 

 colder and more inhospitable regions of the northern or 

 southern divisions of the globe, where they exist in 

 numbers almost surpassing our powers of computation. 

 One species in particular, the little Auk, or Greenland 

 Dove (Alca alle), Sir Edward Parry met with by millions, 

 when the ships got amongst the ice in particular spots, 

 and they were killed for sea provisions. But in the 

 southern hemispheres they appear to be even still more 

 abundant. 



Adjacent to the islands of Australia*, the Sooty 

 Petrels (Procellaria pacifica,) congregate in incredible 

 masses, of from fifty to eighty yards in depth, and of 



three hundred yards 

 or more in breadth, 

 not scattered, but 

 flying as compactly 

 and as close as the 

 free movement of 

 their wings will al- 

 low, and passing for 

 a full hour or more 

 with a swiftness lit- 

 tle inferior to that 

 of a Pigeon. On 

 these data, it ha& 

 been calculated that the number in such a flight would 

 amount to one hundred and fifty-one million, five hun- 

 dred thousand birds ! about one fifth of the whole popu- 

 lation of the globe. These birds live and breed in 

 burrows, and the number of burrows required to lodge 

 such a flock would not be far short of seventy-six mil- 



Petrel. 



* FLINDERS' Australia. 



