WILSON'S PETREL. 489 



motion, and it inclines its head downwards to pick up its food from the 

 water, and I have observed it immerse the whole head beneath the surface, 

 to seize on small fishes, in which it generally succeeded. It can walk pretty 

 well on the deck of a vessel, or any other flat surface, and rise from it 

 without much difficulty. Its notes are different from that of the Forked- 

 tailed Petrel, and resembles the syllables kee-re-kee kee. They are more 

 frequently emitted at night than by day. I never could ascertain whe- 

 ther or not these birds alight on the rigging at night, but my opinion is 

 that they do not, for the sailors, to whom I had offered premiums for 

 catching some of them, told me that although they flew about them while 

 aloft, they could not see one standing anywhere. 



In my journal written on board the packet ship Columbia, command- 

 ed by my worthy friend Joseph Delano, Esq., I find the following me- 

 morandums : Wilson's Petrel was first seen, this voyage, about two 

 hundred miles from England, and alone vmtil we reached the middle of 

 the Atlantic, when the Forked-tailed came in sight, after which the lat- 

 ter was most plentiful, and the pelagica by far the least numerous.'" Du- 

 ring my several visits to the coasts of the Floridas, I saw scarcely any of 

 these birds in the course of several months spent there, but I found them 

 pretty abundant on returning towards Charleston. This species, like 

 the others, feeds on mollusca, small fishes, Crustacea, marine plants, ex- 

 crements of cetaceous animals ; and the greasy substances thrown from 

 vessels. When caught, they squirt an oily substance through the nos- 

 trils, and often disgorge the same. The sexes are similar in their ex- 

 ternal ajipearance. 



Thalassidboma Wilsonii, Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, 



p. 367. 

 Stqhmv Petrel, Procellahia pelagica, JFtfe. Amer. Ornith.vol. vii. p. 90. pi. CO. 

 Procellaria Wilsonii, Ch. Bonapprte, Journ. Acad. Phil. vol. vi. p. 231. pi. 9. 

 Wilson's Stormy Petrel, Nuttall, INIanual, vol. ii. p. 322. 



Adult Male. Plate CCLXX. Fig. L 



Bill shorter than the head, slender, straight, with the tips curved, as 

 broad as high at the base, compressed towards the end. Upper mandi- 

 ble with the nostrils forming a tube at the base, beyond which, for a short 

 space, the dorsal line is straight, then decurved, the ridge narrow and se- 

 parated from the sides by a narrow groove, the edges sharp, inflected, the 

 tip compressed obliquely deflected. Lower mandible with the angle ra- 



