44 BRITISH BIRDS. 



" Swift birds, that skim o'er the stormy deep, 

 "Who steadily onward your journey keep, 

 Who neither for rest nor for slumber stay. 

 But press still forward by night or day; 

 As in your unwearying course ye fly 

 Beneath the clear and unclouded sky; 

 Oh ! may we, without delay, like you, 

 The path of duty and right pursue." 



A. celebrated voyager once saw a stream of stormy 

 petrels, from fifty to eighty yards deep, and in breadth 

 three hundred yards or more. They were not scattered, 

 but appeared to be flying as compactly as they could to 

 have the full use of their wings, and they passed on 

 without intermission for an hour and a half, at a rate 

 of swiftness little inferior to that of a pigeon. Their 

 number must have been indeed prodigious : one cannot 

 venture to calculate them. 



The petrel, which will frequently follow a ship for 

 many days, probably for the sake of what is thrown 

 overboard, for it will stoop and pick up bits of biscuit 

 and meat, is supposed by sailors to be seen only before 

 stormy weather, and is therefore considered by no 

 means a welcome visitor. It is not, however, peculiar 

 in presaging tempests, as birds of different families have 

 a nicer perception of change in the atmosphere than 

 man. Thus, before rain, swallows more eagerly hawk 

 for flies, and ducks carefully trim their feathers, and 



