A Lovable Sea-Bird 369 



on the weather scarp of a frowning iceberg, or around 

 the pleasantly lapped beach of a coral atoll in mid 

 Pacific ; cheery, indomitable little waif, who with 

 a heart as big as a grain of mustard seed could help 

 loving you ? I could not wish the Bible other in any 

 respect than it is, but somehow I have always longed 

 that mention of the Stormy Petrel had been made 

 in it. I rejoice to note the gentle Saviour's reference 

 to the sparrow, to the dove, to the hen gathering 

 her chickens under her wings ; but I have never 

 seen the Stormy Petrel flitting between crest and 

 hollow of the mighty storm-waves in mid-ocean, 

 when the great ship was being tested in every fibre 

 of her build, but I have thought how much I should 

 have liked to see that dear wee brave thing mentioned 

 in the best of all books. 



The Stormy Petrel (Procellaria pelagica) is a black- 

 and-white bird of about the bigness of a thrush. Its 

 wings are somewhat broader and sturdier than those 

 of the latter bird, and its legs are longer — very long, 

 in fact, in proportion to its size for a sea-bird. With 

 the tiny webbed feet attached, they look as if made 

 of black silk, and they are much more in evidence 

 than those of any of the other pelagic birds, from an 

 inveterate habit this Petrel has of stretching them 

 out one after another, and just touching the water 

 with them as it skims over the surface. For the Petrel 

 does not fly high ; no one ever saw a Stormy Petrel 

 twenty feet above the sea unless it had been taken 

 there, or was at its nesting-place, of which more anon. 



Its principal characteristic is, I think, insuscepti- 

 bility to fatigue. It does seem to have solved the 

 secret of perpetual motion. In the course of fifteen 

 years' voyaging, scarcely a day of which while at sea 

 has passed without seeing these dear httle birds, I 



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