Song Birds and Water Fowl 



and contains but a single egg. Although so 

 essentially aerial, they are web-footed, and in 

 calm weather will often half fly and half spring 

 over the surface of the water. Hardly any bird 

 is less intimately known than the ever-roaming 

 petrel ; and, as we look upon this vanishing and 

 ever-distant living mystery, with its minute and 

 dusky form, white spotted, dashing tirelessly 

 above the sea, it is an exquisite symbol of the 

 dark waves, crested with white, that are ever 

 sweeping on, age after age, in restless flight. 



136 



