18 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



Wilson's petrel; mother-carey's-chicken 



June 18, 1857. I had shortly before picked up a 

 Mother-Carey's-ehicken, which was just washed up dead 

 on the beach. ^ This I carried tied to the tip of my 

 umbrella, dangling outside. When the inhabitants saw 

 me come up from the beach this stormy day, with this 

 emblem dangling from my umbrella, and saw me set it 

 up in a corner carefully to be out of the way of cats, 

 they may have taken me for a crazy man. . . . 



The Mother-Carey's-chicken was apparently about 

 thirteen inches in alar extent, black-brown, with seven 

 primaries, the second a little longer than the third ; 

 rump and vent white, making a sort of ring of white, 

 breast ashy -brown, legs black with yellowish webs, bill 

 black with a protuberance above. 



Jtine 22, 1857. It was a thick fog with some rain, 

 and we saw no land nor a single sail, till near Minot's 

 Ledge. ^ The boat stopped and whistled once or twice. 

 The monotony was only relieved by the numerous pet- 

 rels,^ those black sea-swallows, incessantly skimming 

 over the undulating [surface], a few inches above and 

 parallel with it, and occasionally picking some food 

 from it. Now they dashed past our stern and now 

 across our bows, as if we were stationary, though going 

 at the rate of a dozen knots an hour. 



1 [On Cape Cod.] 



^ [On the steamer from Provincetown to Boston.] 



^ [The season would indicate that these were probably Wilson's 

 petrels, rather than Leach's, which in the latter part of June would 

 be on their breeding-grounds.] 



