138 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



Range in Great Britain. Found on all the seas round the 

 British coasts, and sometimes occurring in some numbers, 

 especially in the late autumn. In May the Storm- Petrel 

 arrives to breed, and it betakes itself to the islands off the coasts 

 of Scotland and Ireland, and also does the same in a few 

 localities in the west of England, such as the coasts of Wales 

 and the Scilly Islands. On the eastern coast no breeding 

 places are known. Mr. Ussher says that in Ireland the Storm- 

 Petrel " breeds on islands off the coasts of Donegal, Antrim, 

 Kerry, Galway, and Mayo. Very large colonies exist on some 

 of the islands off Kerry." 



Range outside the British Islands. The Storm-Petrel is an 

 inhabitant of the North Atlantic Ocean on both sides, visiting 

 the Mediterranean, and extending its range South to West 

 Africa. 



Habits. Mr. W. H. Turle gives an interesting account of a 

 visit to the Blasquet Islands, and tells us how, when he arrived 

 in the dark, the inhabitants of the cabin lighted their only 

 candle on receiving him, this candle being a "rush drawn 

 through the oily body of a Stormy Petrel." Mr. Turle found 

 the species breeding among the rocks, and in what had evi- 

 dently been rabbit-holes. It is said to form an article of food 

 on the Blasquets, and Seebohm ate some of the young 

 birds during his visit to these islands in 1856. He found them 

 delicious eating when cooked on toast like Snipe, and he pro- 

 nounces them to have been " very rich, but not at all fishy." 



Seebohm gives a good description of the Storm-Petrel, as 

 he observed it on the Blasquets : " Our foreground for half 

 a mile or so all round was a mass of rocks, here and there 

 rising into a grassy knoll generally crowned with rocks. No 

 tree of any description was visible ; we did not find so much 

 as a shrub on the whole island, unless half-a-dozen scattered 

 bramble bushes may be allowed to club together and unitedly 

 attain to the dignity of shrub. The only houses on the island 

 were a couple of cabins, half above and half under ground, 

 without window or chimney, and with no rnortar in the walls. 



" Whichever way we turned we could see nothing but rocks 

 and piles of rocks, with grassy slopes between, where rabbits 

 abounded and a few sheep grazed. The coast was grand 



