164 THE OCEAN. 



the Petrels {Procellaria pelagica), the constant com- 

 panions of the sailor, by whom they are familiarly 

 named Mother Carey's chickens. They are peculiarly 

 Ocean-birds : rarely approaching the shore, except 

 when they seek gloomy and inaccessible rocks for 

 the purpose of breeding, they are never seen but 

 in association with the boundless waste of waters. 

 Scarcely larger than the swallow that darts through 

 our streets, one wonders that so frail a little bird 

 should brave the fury of the tempest ; but when the 

 masts are cracking, and the cordage shrieking fit- 

 fully in the fierce blast, and when the sea is leaping 

 up into mountainous waves, whose foaming crests 

 are torn off in invisible mist before the violence of 

 the gale, the little Petrel flits hither and thither, 

 now treading the brow of the watery hill, now 

 sweeping through the valley, piping its singular note 

 with as nmch glee as if it were the very spirit of the 

 storm, which the superstitious mariner, indeed, attri- 

 butes to its evil agency. Plocks of these little birds, 

 more or less numerous, accompany ships, often for 

 many days successively, not, as has been asserted, 

 to seek a refuge from the storm in their shelter, 

 but to feed on the greasy particles which the cook 

 now and then throws overboard, or the floating sub- 

 stances which the vessel's motion brings to the sur- 

 face. It is a pleasing sight to see them crowd up 

 close under the stern with confiding fearlessness, 

 their sooty wings horizontally extended, and their 

 tiny web-feet put down to feel the water, while they 

 pick up with their beaks the minute atoms of food 

 of which they are in search. I have been surprised 



