542 Laridce. 



their habit of dashing hither and thither in the gloom of night, 

 they are known to the Malaga fishermen as 'Animas' and 

 < Diablos.'* 



233. WILSON'S PETREL (Thalassidroma oceanica). 



The Petrels are at once to be distinguished by their remark- 

 able beak, which differs from that of all other birds ; and they 

 possess the power of squirting from their tubular nostrils a 

 clear liquid oil. They are of very rapid flight, and, though far 

 separated in all respects from that family, bear a general re- 

 semblance in appearance and colour to the Swallows, whence 

 Temminck called them Petrels Hirondelles. They are of nocturnal 

 habits, remaining underground in the holes t where they breed 

 during the day, for bright daylight seems to overpower them, 

 and they abhor the brilliant sunshine : and they come forth in 

 the evening to fly with astonishing speed over the waves. 

 Stormy weather, however, attended as it generally is with a 

 darkened sky, tempts them forth in the daytime : and hence 

 they are looked upon by superstitious sailors as the harbingers, 

 if not the promoters, of a tempest, and are hated by them 

 accordingly.-f- The scientific name, thalassidroma, sufficiently 

 describes the habit of the species which compose this genus of 

 running on the surface of the waves ; whence, too, their English 

 and French name of ' Petrel ' is derived, in allusion to the in- 

 cident narrated in the Gospels, of the Apostle St. Peter walking 

 on the water. Wilson's Petrel is one of our rarest British birds, 

 but three or four specimens alone having been obtained in this 

 country. It is therefore with especial gratification that I am 

 able to record, on the unimpeachable testimony of the late 

 Rev. G. Marsh, that a fine specimen of this bird was picked up 

 dead from exhaustion in Sutton Benger Mead in November, 

 1849. The labourer who found it took it home to his cottage, 

 with the intention of taking it to the Vicarage ; but on his wife 

 persuading him that it was only a Swift, he threw it out into 



* Howard Saunders in Ibis for 1871, p. 401. 

 f Zoologist for 1859, p. 6192. 



