178 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



The Stormy Petrel is a bird of such an oilj nature, that in some 

 places fishermen used to make lamps of their bodies, by simpiy 

 drawing a wick through them. So great was the superstition of 

 sailors at one time concerning this Petrel, that they thought it was 

 possessed of some magic influence derived from Mother Carey, and 

 that it could produce a storm at will ; they also beheved it never 

 visited the land, but carried its egg under its wing, and there hatched 

 it while flying over the storm-tossed ocean ; so this pretty little sea 

 bird was hated as well as feared. 



There are other places in the north, where a few Petrels annually 

 breed, as the Shetland Isles, that great rock known as Ailsa Craig, 

 in the Firth of Clyde, on the island of St. Kikla, one of the most 

 westerly of the Hebrides Islands, in the north of Scotland, and on 

 some few other barren islands of northern Europe and North 

 America. Procellaria Wilsonii is a North American species, some- 

 what resembling the Stormy Petrel, and named after the famous 

 American ornithologist. 



The next best known bird of this family is the Cape Petrel, or 

 Cape Pigeon of Sailors, P7-oce//a?-m (or Daption) capensis. Although 

 met with in great numbers in many parts of the Southern Seas, it 

 was first seen by early navigators in considerable numbers off the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and being the size of a good large pigeon, got 

 the name of Cape Pigeon, as it somewhat resembled one in the air 

 in form, and in its colours of white and brown. Before a coming 

 storm these birds get very tame, hovering close over the stern of a 

 ship, and on one occasion I attached a small fish-hook to the end 

 of an English four-in-hand whip, and caught a specimen by causing 

 the end of the thong to curl round its neck. I have also caught 

 them with a baited hook, and even with strong threads towing 

 astern. 



Returning again to the coast of Great Britain, we find four 

 of the family pretty common at times in the northern parts, as the 

 Stormy, Wilson's, The Capped and the Fulmar, and two occasionally, 

 as Bulwer's and Leach's, and some of these are found on the coast of 

 North America. The Cape Petrel has been seen on the coast of 

 Euroj)e, and a Mother Carey's chicken many years ago went up the 

 Thames. On the coast of India tlie two most common are the 

 Ganges Stormy Petrel and the little Diving Petrel. 



The largest of the family is the Giant Fetrel, Procellaria gigantea, 

 whose habitat is the vast Southern Ocean. The early Spanish 

 navigators knew this bird and called it " Quebrantahuesos," or break- 

 bones, from its savage and ra2Jacious habits. In general appearance 

 it is about the size and much resembles the sooty Albatross. The 

 great head quarters of the Giant Petrel used to be the Malounie, 

 now called the Falkland Isles, where they go periodically to breed 

 on the sandy shores there ; and having hatched their young, again 



