BRITISH BIRDS, 233 



at ease, and in security; and yet it seems to for- 

 see and fear the coming storm, long before the 

 seamen can discover any appearance of its ap- 

 proach ; and this these little sure prognosticators 

 make known by flocking together under the wake 

 of the ship, as if to shelter themselves from it, or 

 to warn the mariners, and prepare them to guard 

 against the danger. They are silent during the 

 day, and their clamorous piercing cry is heard 

 only in the night. In the breeding season they 

 betake themselves to the promontories, where, in 

 the fissures of the rocks, they breed and conduct 

 their young to the watery element as soon as they 

 are able to crawl, and immediately lead them for- 

 ward to roam, with themselves, over the trackless 

 ocean. 



Although it has been generally said that these 

 birds are never seen but at sea, except during the 

 period of incubation, yet. many instances have oc- 

 curred of their having been shot inland. Latham 

 speaks of one which was shot at Sandwich, in 

 Kent, in a storm of wind, among a flock of 

 Hoopoes, in the month of January ; of another 

 shot at Walthamstow, in Essex ; and of a third 

 which was killed near Oxford. The late M. Tun- 

 stall, Esq., of Wycliffe, had one sent to him, which 

 was shot near Bakewell, in Derbyshire ; and the 

 specimen from which the above figure and descrip- 

 tion were taken, was found dead in a field near 

 Ripon, in Yorkshire, and obligingly sent to the 

 author by Lieut. -Col. Dalton, late of the 4th 

 Dragoons. It is probable that sickness, or the 

 extreme violence of some hurricane, had driven 

 these birds so far from their natural element. 



VOL. II. 2 G 



