Class II. STORMY PETREL. 20P 



it is always at sea, and is seen all over the vast 

 Atlantic ocean, at the greatest distance from 

 land ; often following the vessels in great flocks, 

 to pick up any thing that falls from on board ; 

 for trial sake, chopped straw has been flung into 

 the sea, which they would stand on with expand- 

 ed wings ; but were never observed to settle on, 

 or swim in the water ; it presages bad weather, 

 and cautions the seamen of the approach of a 

 tempest, by collecting under the stern of the 

 ships ; it braves the utmost fury of the storm, 

 sometimes skimming with incredible velocity 

 along the hollows of the w-aves, sometimes on 

 the summits : Clusius makes it the Camilla of 

 the sea. ■ _; 



Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti 



Ferret iter, celeres nee tingeret sequore plantas. Virgil. 



She swept the seas, and as she skim'd along, 



Her flying feet unbath'd on billows hung. Dryden. 



These birds are the Cypselli of Pliny, which 

 he places among the Apodes of Aristotle ; not 

 because they wanted feet, but w^ere Kajio^o^it *, 

 or had bad, or useless ones; an attribute he 

 gives to these species, on a supposition they 

 were almost always on the v/ing. Hardouin, a 

 critic quite unskilled in natural history, imagines 

 tliem to be martins, the Cypselli of Aristotle'f : 



* Arist. 17. t P. 1067. 



VOL. II. P 



