134 BRITISH BIRDS. 



arrive, of which the last is poorest, but so fat that if Ughted in the dry state 

 they burn. The oil is even of greater value than the fish itself: its taste is 

 not unpleasant, and the odour by no means disagreeable. It is found ver}^ 

 beneficial for pulmonary disease, and has all the property of cod-liver and 

 other fish -oils. Curiously enough, superstition is connected with the fish by 

 the Indians, as well as with the Petrel by the sailors." 



Dr. Henry Saxby says, in the ' Birds of Shetland ' (p. 368) : — " Many 

 an ill-fated Petrel now meets its death by concussion against the lantern 

 of the Flugga lighthouse, sometimes not less than a score and upwards being 

 picked up in one night by the light-keepers, who complain loudly of 

 the trouble the birds give them by vomiting oil upon the glass as they 

 strike. It is scarcely ever at any other season than spring and autumn 

 that the Petrels thus come into collision with the light." 



/ 



