232 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



should leave their usual marine feeding grounds at all, 

 and especially to penetrate so far inland, when their 

 prospects of congenial food are so uncertain. 



The Lesser Black-backed Gull (L. fuscus) I have 

 known to visit us twice, both times in May once in 

 1855, at Bothamsal, and the other in 1859 at Markham 

 Moor ; both were young birds in immature plumage, 

 and both were of course shot. 



I have only one more to add to my list, and that is 

 that little, active ocean roamer, the Stormy Petrel 

 (Thalassidroma pelagica). It is strange that a bird so 

 peculiarly maritime in its habits should have been noted 

 in the heart of Sherwood Forest ! Few birds visit terra 

 firma less than this smallest of our sea birds; arid those 

 that have been taken in various parts of England have, 

 I believe, always been in winter, and have generally 

 been blown out of their marine haunts by gales or 

 storms. 



A pair, male and female, was shot on Thoresby Lake 

 in the winter of 1845, and thus I claim a place for them 

 in our local fauna they were skimming over the water 

 in their usual manner. 



Often have I with delight watched the ceaseless ac- 

 tivity of these little dwellers on the sea ; whether the sea 

 was calm, or whether 



" In breeze, or gale, or storm, 

 Icing the pole, or in the torrid zone dark heaving," 



it made no matter there was this little petrel steadily 

 pursuing its way. The boundless ocean is its home, and 

 I have seen it more than a thousand miles from the 

 nearest land, tipping the waves with its little feet, and 

 following in the wake of the ship to pick up such frag- 



