BIRD NOTES 157 



in his hands a small paper pastry-bag from which 

 a poor little Petrel was looking out in some surprise. 

 I purchased it, and took it home, where it soon 

 learned to peck at soft herring-milts hung within 

 its reach. It would run up and down its new 

 domicile with wings vertically raised, uttering a 

 peepy cry very like that of a newly hatched 

 turkey-chick. It lived but a few days, having 

 never recovered the rough treatment it received 

 from the North Sea gale and the equally rough 

 attentions of its not unkindly disposed captor. 



Mr. Booth (Catalogue of Birds) says : " I have 

 often noticed these poor little birds terribly dis- 

 tressed by the buffetings they receive during a pro- 

 tracted gale, at times hovering and settling among 

 the breakers and occasionally being carried before 

 some blinding squall, almost helpless, inland. After 

 a storm of several days' duration in November 1872 

 I observed scores of these birds resting on the 

 water off the coast of Norfolk apparently worn 

 out, with their heads buried in their feathers. 

 On visiting one of the lightships, I learned that 

 several of the stormy, as well as a single specimen 

 of the fork-tailed petrel, had come on board while 

 the gale was at its height." 



