Storm Petrel. 545 



billow, with wings expanded, while they pick up some dainty 

 morsel at top of the wave, for they procure all their food from 

 the surface of the sea ; but they seldom alight on the water for 

 swimming, and they are quite incapable of diving. Considering 

 their thorough appreciation of angry weather, it is strange how 

 many specimens are annually picked up either dead or in a 

 dying, exhausted condition, during stormy weather in inland 

 districts, as if buffeted to death by the violence of the gale. 

 Possibly it may be that, driven from their proper element, they 

 are faint from starvation, and so unable to contend against the 

 fury of the wind ; at all events, not an autumn passes without 

 many such casualties to the Storm Petrel occurring in our 

 inland counties. In Wiltshire I had a notice from my friend 

 the Rev. W. C. Lukis of a specimen picked up dead by a labour- 

 ing man, in the parish of Ludgershall, in November, 1859. Mr. 

 Grant reports a specimen found at Cherrington, November 9, 

 1863. The Rev. Townley Dowding, then Vicar of Marlborough, 

 told me that in April, 1865, he distinctly saw a bird of this 

 species fly to a portion of the Kennet at the foot of his garden, 

 where it remained some five minutes dabbling in the water, then 

 flew off, and alighted again a short distance farther down the 

 stream ; and lastly, as a fitting conclusion to this long catalogue 

 of Wiltshire birds, wherein I have derived so much assistance 

 from the records furnished me by my late lamented friend, the 

 Rev. George Marsh, I mention a specimen of which he informed 

 me, which was picked up dead at Somerford Parva in the year 

 1830, which had evidently died from exhaustion, and which was 

 preserved by Mr. Wightwick, of Brinkworth, but subsequently 

 became moth-eaten, and no longer exists. 



If Wilson's Petrel deserved the name of oceanica, certainly 

 this species is no less entitled to pelagica, 'belonging to the 

 open sea ;' for what can be more truly oceanic than this little 

 bird, which, as Montagu says, alone of the feathered creation 

 dares venture so far from shore as the middle of the Atlantic 

 Ocean, where it appears to find subsistence, and only retires 

 during the breeding season? From its enjoyment of rough 



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