THE STORMY PETREL 



295 



without seeing the dear little Stormy Petrel, 1 

 or "Mother Carey's Chicken," as it is called 

 by sailormen. After the last gull has been left 

 far behind, and there are about two miles of 

 water under the ship, in the trough between 

 two waves there suddenly glides into view a 

 pair of small black wings, fluttering rapidly, 

 while two little webbed feet work violently to 

 pat the concave surface of the deep blue water. 

 Those who do not know the creature exclaim 

 in surprise, "What in the world is that?" 



"That" is one of the wonders of the ocean 

 world. The cause for surprise is that so small 

 and weak a creature — the smallest of all the 

 web-footed birds, no larger, and seemingly no 

 stronger than a cat-bird — should live on the 

 watery wastes of a landless ocean, eating, sleeping 

 and enjoying literally "a life on the ocean wave, 

 and a home on the rolling deep." 



1 Pro-cel-la'ri-a pe-lag' i-ca. Length, 5.50 inches. 



Even when seas are calm, and skies are clear, 

 one cannot easily imagine how this creature 

 can live, and find its food. But when a pro- 

 longed storm sets in, and for ten clays, or two 

 weeks at a stretch the surface of the sea is a 

 seething, boiling caldron, with every wave a 

 ragged "white-cap" and every square foot of 

 the sea fretted like a fish-net by the force of the 

 wind, how does the frail little Stormy Petrel 

 survive? 



You nearly always see this bird in the trough 

 of the sea, skimming so low that its feet can 

 paddle upon the surface of the water, and assist 

 the wings. It is a black bird, with a large white 

 patch on the rump, just above the tail. It 

 rests upon the water fully half its time, I should 

 say, and aside from the table and galley refuse 

 thrown overboard from vessels, the bulk of its 

 food must consist of the tiny crustaceans that 

 inhabit the floating bunches of sargasso weed. 



