AVE S— A L B A T R O S S. 



659 



run on the top of it ; they are also excellent divers. It skims along the 

 hollows of the waves, and through the spray upon their tops, at the astonish- 

 ing rate of sixty .miles in an hour. They are very clamorous, and are called 

 by the sailors Mother Canfs Chickens, who observe they never settle or sit 

 upon the water but when stormy weather is to be expected. They are 

 found in most parts of the world ; and in the Feroe islands, the inhabitants 

 draw a wick through the body of the bird, from the mouth to the rump, 

 which serves them as a candle, being fed by the vast proportion of oil which 

 this little animal contains. 



Wilson supposed the American stormy petrel to be the same as that of 

 Europe; but Charles Bonaparte has shown that it is a distinct species. It 

 breeds in great numbers on the shores of the Bahama and Berntiuda isles, 

 and on the coast of East Florida and Cuba. This author enumerates four 

 species of the stormy petrel. 



THE ALBATROSS 



Is one of the largest and most formidable birds of Africa and South America. 

 The largest, which is called the wandering albatross, i is rather larger than 



' Diomedea exulans, Lin. The genus Diomedea has the bill very long, stout, edged, 

 compressed, straight, suddenly curved ; upper mandible channelled on the sides, andmuch 

 hooked at the point, the under smooth, and truncated at the extremity ; nostrils lateral, 

 remote from the base, tubular, covered on the sides, and open in front ; legs short, with 

 only three very long toes entirely webbed ; the lateral one margined ; wings very long and 

 narrow, with the primary quills short, and the secondaries long. 



