THALASSIDROMA PELAGICA. 



(Storm-Petrel.) 



In the first week in May 1859 twenty-eight of these poor little birds were 

 killed three miles off Brighton, eighteen in one day. The yelk of the egg, 

 as I am informed by the Rev. R. N. Dennis, is peculiarly thick and oily, unlike 

 that of any other species. They hold their egg under their wings, whence it 

 falls out if the bird is drawn from its hole. 



Robert Mudie, in his ' Feathered Tribes of the British Islands ' (vol. ii. 

 p. 391), gives a vignette of the Alata Jlamma — the Stormy Petrel with a 

 wick drawn through it and lighted, instead of a lamp, as used by the 

 Faroese. 



The inhabitants of British Columbia use a fish for this purpose, instead 

 of a bird. They draw a piece of rush-pith, or strip from the inner bark of 

 the cypress tree, through it by means of a needle of hard wood. It is then 

 lighted, and burns steadily ; any one can read comfortably by its light. 

 This is the Candlefish, Osmeriis pacificus (Salmo (^Mallotus) pacificus), Richard- 

 son, 'Fauna Borealis-Americana ;' Thaleichthys pacificus of modern authors. 

 The Indian name is Oulachan, or Eulachon. 



I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Giinther, of the British Museum, 

 for a sight of a paper by Robert Brown, F.R.G.S., reprinted from the 

 'Pharmaceutical Journal' for June, 1868, containing a full account of this 

 fish, " which is small and delicate-looking, about the size of a smelt, and 

 is found in most of the rivers on the coast of British Columbia. ... It cannot 

 be cooked in a pan ; for it will blaze up like a mass of oil. The Indians 

 assemble from far and near and make a holiday of the fishing. Three shoals 



