370 The Petrels 



have never seen one at rest. When feeding they do 

 not settle on the sea ; they hover over the wave and 

 peck at their food, whatever it may be, much as a 

 butterfly hovers over and sips at a flower. But the 

 idea of resting upon the sea-surface never seems to 

 occur to them, either by day or by night ; for on a 

 fine night in the middle watch — that is, from twelve 

 to four — I have often watched the little dark shapes 

 still flitting around, and heard, by listening closely, 

 their low, twittering cry. This faculty alone would 

 in so small a bird have given them a mysterious 

 importance in the eyes of sailors, but in addition 

 to that there is the fact of their constancy to ships 

 everywhere. There are parts of the ocean where 

 no birds but these are ever seen by the sailor ; but 

 I have never sailed anywhere, from Behring Straits 

 to Antarctica, from Labrador to the Crozets, where 

 I have not seen these little nomads of the sea. Of 

 course, and I am rather tired of pointing it out, they, 

 like the dolphins and fish, cannot accompany a swift 

 steamship as they used to the leisurely wind-jammer, 

 and in consequence future generations of seafarers 

 will not know them at all — a very serious loss. 



Naturalists declare that the Stormy Petrels in 

 one ocean differ from those in another, while at the 

 same time admitting that varieties from the Southern 

 Pacific have been seen in Britain. Common sailors 

 like myself prefer to believe that all this nice division 

 into sub-families, except for purposes of high science, 

 has no value, and, indeed, very often we know that 

 varieties have been tabulated between birds and 

 fish of exactly the same character on account of some 

 little peculiarity. One property of the Petrels, both 

 large and small, has often been noted, their peculiarly 

 musky smell, which extends to their eggs both outside 



