184 



NATUBAL HISTORY. 



Fig. 151. Stormy Petrel. 



panying ships in their 

 course, and in doing 

 so, fly with the great- 

 est rapidity in every 

 direction, now ahead 

 and now astern. 

 They have the faculty 

 of standing and swim- 

 ming on the surface 

 of the water. When 

 any greasy matter is 

 thrown overboard, 

 they collect about it, 

 and facing to the windward, they manage, with their out- 

 stretched wings and their feet patting the water, to keep 

 themselves stationary while they eat it. In calm weath- 

 er, by a gentle action of the wings, they walk along on 

 the surface of the water with the greatest ease. It was 

 the walking of the Apostle Peter on the water that sug- 

 gested the name of Petrel for these birds. 



297. To the same family belongs the Albatross, so much 

 in contrast with the Stormy Petrel in size. This gigan- 

 tic bird, weighing about twenty pounds, and having a 

 spread of wing sometimes of fourteen feet, is an inhabit- 

 ant of the southern seas. With its great power of flight, 

 it is a grand and beautiful object as it sweeps over the 

 surface of the water in chase of the Flying-fish. This and 

 other fish it swallows whole, being able to appropriate in 

 this way a fish of even four or five pounds. 



298. The Terns, or Sea Swallows, another branch of 

 this family, are like the Swifts and the Swallows of the 

 land in their long pointed wings and forked tails. Like 

 them, also, they take their prey on the wing. Some of 

 them live on fish, and some on insects, like the land Swal- 

 lows. The common Tern, Fig. 152 (p. 185), is found in 

 abundance on the shores of both continents. It lives on 

 fish, which it snatches from the water as it skims over 



