286 BIRDS. 



2. THE PETRELS. 



Those who know the great albatrosses of the southern 

 hemisphere find its flight wonderfully reproduced in that of 

 Storm- its tiny black-and-white relative, the " Mother 

 Petrel. Carey's chicken," or Storm-Petrel, of northern 

 seas. The foolish notion that connects this bird with 

 storms has just so much truth in it as that, knowing 

 instinctively when a storm is nearing, it seeks the com- 

 pany of ships. The albatross does, as a matter of fact, 

 often fly better in a gale than in still weather, and I 

 have seen these birds following the ship for days of very 

 dirty weather heedless of the storm. Not only does the 

 flight of the petrel recall the larger bird, but its features 

 are those of the other in miniature the tubular nostrils 

 and hooked bill; and, to complete the resemblance, there 

 is the same unpleasant oily smell about the plumage. 

 When a petrel is brought aboard, it is visibly distressed, 

 like its larger relatives, keeping its footing with difficulty 

 and hanging its head, while oil drops from its bill as if 

 it were sea-sick. Like all its kind, the storm-petrel is a 

 true sea-bird, feeding on the floating squid and other 

 surface food, and even roosting on the water. It breeds 

 in the Scilly Islands and on Lundy. The single egg is laid 

 at the farther end of a burrow that smells yet worse than 

 the bird. Egg, i \$ inch ; white, slightly spotted. 



Leach's, or the "Fork -tailed," Petrel, is an irregular 

 visitor to the east coast of England, but breeds on St 



Leach's Kilda, as well as in parts of the Hebrides and 



Petrel, elsewhere on the Scottish and Irish coasts. 

 I recollect one of these birds being picked up dead after 

 a three days' gale one November off Ecclesbourne, near 

 Hastings. The bird is somewhat less sombre than the 

 storm-petrel, and the white-barred black tail is forked. 

 Egg, i YZ inch ; white, with tiny spots. 



[An example of an allied species was found on the Sussex 



