FOOD FOR SEA-BIRDS. 



427 



from fifty to eighty yards in depth, and of three hundred 

 yards or more in breadth, not scattered, hut flying as com- 

 pactly and as close as the free movement of their wings will 

 allow, and passing for a full hour or more with a swiftness 

 little inferior to that of a Pigeon. On these data, it has heen 

 calculated that the number in such a flight would amount 

 to one hundred and fifty-one million, five hundred thousand 

 birds ! about one-fifth of the whole population of the globe. 

 These birds live and breed in burrows ; and the number of 

 burrows required to 

 lodge such a flock 

 would not be far short 

 of seventy- six millions ; 

 and allowing a square 

 yard for each burrow, 

 the space covered would 

 be something more 

 than twenty-four and 

 a half square miles, or 

 nearly fifteen thousand 

 six hundred and eighty 

 acres of ground ! 



And though in such cheerless solitudes, man would soon 

 perish for want of sustenance, living food seems to be placed 

 there by Providence to a greater extent than in any other 

 known parts of the habitable globe. Countless as are 

 the myriads of these birds, still more countless, by millions 

 and millions of figures, are the lesser marine beings on which 

 they feed. Some idea may be formed of their abundance, by 

 calculating the length of time that would be requisite for a 

 certain number of persons to count the quantity contained in 

 one square mile of sea-water. Allowing that one person 

 could count a million in seven days, which is barely possible, 

 it has been calculated that no less than eighty thousand 

 persons should have started at the creation of the world, 

 nearly six thousand years ago, to complete the calculation to 

 the present time ! And if, passing beyond the consideration 



Petrel. 



