COMMON OBJECTS OF THE SHORE. 339 



so great, seems even yet to be foaming with rage, 

 perchance some stormy petrel ( Thalassidroma pda- 

 gica) may be seen darting about over the waters 

 close to the shore, or coming to seek refuge on the 

 cliff. It is common at such times around the coast 

 of England and Scotland, and is a bird something 

 like a swift, with a short compressed bill, and the 

 smallest of all web-footed birds. Large flocks of 

 these petrels often appear far from land, and the 

 mariner, with the superstitious feeling common to 

 those who live in mountainous places, or far away 

 out at sea, or in other lonely regions, looks on them 

 as messengers of the storm, and associates them 

 with all the wild terrors of the tempest, the broken 

 mast, and the shipwrecked vessel, and the drowning 

 sailor. The name of storm-finch has its synonyme 

 in the French Petrel Tempete, and the Accello 

 delle Tempeste of the Italians ; and the sailors give 

 the bird the name of Mother Carey's chicken, from 

 one who was supposed, in darker times, to be a 

 witch, and, able to raise a storm by her machina- 

 tions, sent out our little birds as forerunners of 

 evil. That their appearance forbodes a tempest, 

 is often true, but their instinct leads them, in the 

 time of coming danger, to hover in the wake of the 

 vessel, as if, like some other of the lower animals, 

 they relied on the presence of man for safety. Yet 

 even when skies are blue, and the waters are calm 

 as the silvery lake, the petrel follows the ship, 

 sometimes for days, gathering up for its food such 

 refuse as may be thrown from it. Sleepless and 

 untiring, skimming lightly over the water with 

 unfailing wing, and only gently touching its sur- 

 face, they seem almost to walk upon the sea; and 

 Mr. Yarrell says that its name of petrel was 



