418 NATATORES. 



the water, and keeps them up like a wedge without any per- 

 ceptible stroke. When they have once acquired a consider- 

 able degree of velocity, one can easily understand how their 

 own motion may, while they hold the wings oblique to the 

 wind, buoy them up as a paper kite is buoyed, their own 

 weight serving as the string, and their feet acting upon the 

 water and continuing the rate which produces the wind ; 

 and as their nights or floatings are taken against the wind, 

 one can guess at, though not explain, their most singular 

 progress. 



They resort to the breeding grounds about March, and 

 though the brood is but a single bird, they take plenty of time 

 in the rearing of it, as they do not depart till about August. 

 The egg is white, and the young one, when it does make its 

 appearance, differs not much from the parent birds. Upon 

 what they feed themselves and it, is not very well known ; 

 but they do feed plentifully, for they are all very fat, and 

 the young in particular (the old ones are rather oily and 

 rancid) are sought after with considerable assiduity ; and, 

 after being cured with salt, the islesmen reckon them no 

 bad food. 



THE CINEREOUS PETREL (Puffinus cinereus). 



This species, which is about one-third larger than the 

 former, appears upon the British shores only as an occasional 

 straggler. It is met with in the warmer seas, in the 

 Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, on the shores of tropical 

 Africa, and as far as the Cape of Good Hope. Its bill is 

 depressed towards the base, but compressed and margined at 

 the tip, and channelled on the upper surface. The general 

 colour of the upper part is blackish brown ; that of the 

 under part ash grey, but with a tinge of purplish brown on 



