240 



THE OPAL SEA 



The flight 

 of the 

 petrel 



The un- 

 resting 

 wing. 



Self reli- 

 ance of the 

 petrel. 



up in the air, but usually a few inches above 

 the water ; and as he ilies his long blackish legs 

 hang down and his web feet seem to pat the 

 surface of the storm waves with the lightest 

 possible touch. 



With such a flight he goes for days and 

 nights (for aught we know for weeks and 

 months) up and down the waves, darting 

 through the troughs, slipping along smooth 

 hollows, paddling up the sides of water wedges, 

 mounting over drives of spray, delighting in 

 wind and rain; and never quite so much at 

 home as when the spindrift is flying. He 

 does not stop to alight, even when he finds 

 food; but keeps a beating wing and a dancing 

 foot above it until the little hooked bill se- 

 cures it. Then on and on again, knowing no 

 resting place, knowing no home, now Ijy the 

 icebergs of the Antarctic, now with the storm 

 waves of the Atlantic, as fearless of loneliness 

 as of tempests, traveling where no other life is 

 seen — the bravest, freest, most self-reliant bird 

 ever known to man. 



The gray-black wing of the stormy petrel 

 has not solved the problem of perpetual mo- 

 tion; but it has suggested once again how hap- 

 pily nature fits her creatures to their home and 

 arms them for their special needs. What a 



