THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 177 



For from early dawn to long after sunset, we see tliem ever on tlie 

 wing, and the more the ocean is lashed into storm, and while the 

 hurricane or tornado are sweeping the sea in all their awful grandeur, 

 and making the bravest sons of ocean cling to the rigging and hold 

 their breath, the stormy petrel is all in its glory, and skips from 

 crest to crest of the seething and hissing waters, apparently with 

 all the buoyant joy of the spring butterfly, who on its sunny pf;th sips 

 nectar from the flora of creation. The ocean is the native home 

 of these birds, and they are met with in all latitudes, from the 

 burning sun of the tropics to the ice-bound shores of the Arctic find 

 Antarctic circles, and far away from any land ; they fly with swift- 

 ness and power, keeping it up night and day for long periods. 

 At times they will run on the top of the water with their wings 

 extended, and from this habit they get their name of Petrel from 

 early navigators, who compared them to St. Peter, Peterill, being, 

 or m.eaning, a diminutive Peter. 



The beak of these birds is about the length of the head, consist- 

 ing of several pieces, and is hooked at the tip ; the nostrils are 

 either tubular, on the side or at the base of the bill ; the hind toe 

 consists of an elevated claw, and the tarsus is usually short. 



Their food consists mostly of molluscous and crustacean animals, 

 and sometimes they feed on the dead bodies of cetaceans, but do not 

 often eat fish. They have a great partiality for fat, and oil they 

 have been seen to scoop from the sea with their beaks, after it has 

 been thrown from a ship. 



The most interesting, because the best known, is the Stormy 

 Petrel, or Mother Carey's chicken, Procellaria pelagica. 



This bird was once the terror of sailors, who considered it the 

 omen of an approaching storm, and in those days they had much 

 the same feelings about a parson, and did not like him as a 

 passenger, believing he brought bad luck ; but now-a-days these 

 superstitions, as well as sailing on a Friday, have, I may say, quite 

 died out ; but " Jack" still believes in a mermaid, and will get very 

 angry if you doubt his having seen one. 



In northern latitudes Stormy Petrels make for the coast of ISoYtx 

 Scotia at the breeding season, where there are many low-lying islands 

 of a sandy nature on the surface, and deeper down mud is met with. 

 Here thousands of Petrels congregate and set to work making 

 little burrows of nearly a foot deep. They lay one white egg about 

 the size of a pigeon's, and when the young appear they are like 

 small white puffs, the down on them being so fine. The parent birds 

 go to sea mostly through the day, returning at night to feed their 

 young, which they do with secreted fluid food from their digestive 

 organs, and during the whole night while the feeding goes on they 

 make a great croaking noise like a large army of discontented frogs. 



