'Shearwaters and Petrels 



thousands of miles from the Southern Ocean to pass its summer 

 with us. 



Audubon noted that these petrels were seldom seen about 

 their nesting sites during the day, but seemed to have some 

 nocturnal proclivities; for they approached the shore after dark, 

 and flew around like so many bats in the twilight, all the while 

 uttering a wild, plaintive cry. But Chamberlain claims that one of 

 the birds, usually the male, sits on its egg all day while its mate 

 is out foraging at sea. " When handled," he says, " these birds 

 emit from mouth and nostrils a small quantity of oil-like fluid of 

 a reddish color and pungent, musk-like odor. The air at the 

 nesting site is strongly impregnated with this odor, and it guides 

 a searcher to the nest." Sailors have dubbed them with numer- 

 ous vile names on account of this peculiar means of defense. 



A few bits of sticks and grasses laid at the end of a tunnel 

 burrowed in the ground, at the top of an ocean cliff, very much 

 as the bank swallow constructs its nest, make the only home 

 these sea-rovers know. Such a tunnel contains one egg, about 

 an inch to an inch and a half long, and marked, chiefly around the 

 larger end, with small reddish-brown spots. In most respects 

 Leach's petrel is identical with Wilson's, and the reader is there- 

 fore referred to the fuller account of that bird. 



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