262 STORMY PETREL. 



the ship's stern, watching their movements, until it was so dark 

 that the eye could no longer follow them, though I could still 

 hear their low note of weet weet, as they approached near to 

 the vessel below me. 



These birds are sometimes driven by violent storms to a con- 

 siderable distance inland. One was shot some years ago on the 

 river Schuylkill, near Philadelphia; and Bewick mentions their 

 being found in various quarters of the interior of England. 

 From the nature of their food, their flesh is rank and disagree- 

 able; though they sometimes become so fat, that, as Mr. Pen- 

 nant, on the authority of Brunnich, asserts, " the inhabitants 

 of the Feroe isles make them serve the purposes of a candle, 

 by drawing a wick through the mouth and rump, which being 

 lighted, the flame is fed by the fat and oil of the body."* 



Note. When this work was published, its author was not aware 

 that those birds observed by navigators in almost every quarter of 

 the globe, and known under the name of Stormy Petrels, form- 

 ed several distinct species; consequently, relying on the labours 

 of his predecessors, he did not hesitate to name the subject of 

 this chapter the Pelagica, believing it to be identical with that 

 of Europe. But the investigations of later ornithologists hav- 

 ing resulted in the conviction that Europe possessed at least two 

 species of these birds, it became a question whether or not those 

 which are common on the coasts of the United States would 

 form a third species; and an inquiry has established the fact that 

 the American Stormy Petrel, hitherto supposed to be the true 

 Pelagica, is an entirely distinct species. For this discovery 

 we are indebted to the labours of Charles Bonaparte, from 

 whose interesting paper on the subject, published in the Jour- 

 nal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, we 

 shall take the liberty of making an extract. The author of the 

 paper in question first describes and figures the true Pelagica 

 of the systems; secondly, the Leachii, a species described by 

 Temminck, and restricted to the vicinity of the island of St. 



* Brit. Zool. vol. ii, p. 434. 



