Co u rie rs of th e Air. 47 



noisy rhythm under the deck, what a clumsy 

 affair it is compared to the dainty plumes and 

 delicate muscles which carry that pretty, fearless 

 sea-swallow back to his roost." 



No deserts seem to bound the range of the 

 petrels, and they are found at every distance from 

 land. Different species inhabit every ocean from 

 the fulmar in the far north to the giant petrel which 

 extends its flight to the icebanks of the south. Here 

 the Antarctic and snowy petrels appear, floating 

 upon the drift ice, and never leaving these dreary 

 seas. Another bird of immense wing power is 

 the tiny stormy petrel, the smallest web-footed 

 bird known. It belongs to every sea, and al- 

 though so seeming frail it breasts the utmost fury 

 of the storm, skimming with incredible velocity 

 the trough of the waves, and gliding rapidly over 

 their snowy crests. Petrels have been observed 

 two thousand miles from nearest land, whilst at 

 half that distance Sir James Ross once saw a 

 couple of penguins quietly paddling in the sea. 

 A pair of the rudimentary wings of this bird are 

 lying before me as I write. These are simply 

 featherless paddles, but by their aid so rapidly 

 does the bird swim that it almost defies many of 

 the fishes to equal it. The enormous appetite of 

 the giant penguin (which weighs about eighty 

 pounds) may have something to do with its 

 restricted powers of flight, and in the stomach of 

 one of these Ross found ten pounds of quartz, 



