178 THE HUMAN SIDE OF BIRDS 



Among the most daring of the aviators may be 

 ranked the petrels. These graceful fliers seem to 

 inhabit the sea as well as the land. There are sev- 

 eral species of the giant petrel, which travels to the 

 ice-cliffs of the South. The stormy petrel is the 

 smallest web-footed bird known. Its powers of 

 flight and endurance are almost unthinkable ; it can 

 brave the fiercest storm, gliding in and out among 

 the troughs made by the waves. It is one of Nep- 

 tune's flowers of the ocean — an aviator of the sea. 



Powerful as are the flights of the larger aviators 

 of the bird world, yet they are not more so in pro- 

 portion than that of many of the smallest and 

 daintiest of fliers, such as the gold-crests, whose tiny 

 bodies appear like miniature fluffs of feathers, each 

 weighing about seventy grains. The ox-eye tit is 

 often found from 700 to 900 miles from land, and 

 numerous small birds cross the Atlantic. 



But these are not ocean aviators in the true sense 

 of the word. Perhaps the shearwaters, which are 

 supposed to breed in the far Antarctic regions, are 

 allies of the petrels, and, like them, nest in burrows 

 or caves, are the best known ocean wanderers. As 

 soon as the young are able to fly, they are attracted 

 to the sea — and roam over the southern waters, 

 then across the equator, and, according to the old 

 sailors, land in Nova Scotia. During the spring 



