416 THE STORMY PETREL. 



only of which are well known to us, as frequenters of our 

 shores : the Fulmar, which is nearly as large as a Gull, and 

 the Stormy Petrel, better known to sailors by the name of 

 Mother Carey's Chickens, about the size of, and in appear- 

 ance not unlike, the Swift, or largest Swallow. Their whole 

 bodies seem to be filled and impregnated with oil to such a 

 degree, that in some of the most remote islands of the 

 Hebrides, the inhabitants actually form them into candles, 

 by merely passing a rush through the body and out at the 

 beak, w r hich is found to burn as well as if dipped in tallow 

 or any other grease. So full are they of this oil, that the 

 Fulmar uses it as a weapon of defence, and when taken 

 will squirt over the person who handles it a strong jet 

 of pure oily liquid. When shot, if it falls into the sea, a 

 partial calm is created by the quantity ejected from its 

 mouth. 



With their quantity of down, which supplies the islanders 

 with warm bedding, and fat, which is considered an effica- 

 cious remedy for wounds ; as is their oil, which is preserved 

 in large bunches of long bladders, made of the gorge or 

 stomach of the Solan Geese; these birds become more 

 valuable to the inhabitants than the poultry tribe to us. 

 The poor people of St. Kilda, in a word, prize them so highly 

 that it is proverbial with them to say, " Deprive us of the 

 Petrel and Fulmar, and St. Kilda is no more." 



They build, like most other sea-birds, in holes and chinks 

 of rocks, or on the ledges of precipices ; though upon Norfolk 

 Island, in Australia, a species has bee_n discovered which bur- 

 rows in sand like rabbits, lying hid in the holes by day, and 

 sallying forth in the evening in quest of food. Their reason 

 for concealing themselves appears to be well founded ; for no 

 doubt this is the same species met with in the other remote 

 islands of the Southern Indian Seas, spoken of* as living in 

 perpetual dread of another of its own genus, the great Black 

 Petrel (Procellaria equinoctialis) ; and well it may, for its 

 sable enemies are incessantly looking out for its heart and 



* MACARTNEY'S Voyage, vol.i. 



