GENUS XCV. PKOCELLARIA. PETKEL. 

 Species. P. PELAGIC A* 



STORMY PETEBL. 



[Plate LX. Fig. 6.] 



Arct. Zool. No. 464. — Le Petrel; ou I'Oiseau temptte, PI. Enl. 993. — Bewick, 



II., 223. 



There are few persons who have crossed the Atlantic, or traversed 

 much of the ocean, who have not observed these solitary wanderers of 

 the deep, skimming along the surface of the wild and wasteful ocean ; 

 flitting past the vessel like Swallows, or following in her wake, gleaning 

 their scanty pittance of food from the rough and whirling surges. 

 Habited in mourning, and making their appearance generally in greater 

 numbers previous to or during a storm, they have long been fearfully 

 regarded by the ignorant and superstitious, not only as the foreboding 

 messengers of tempests and dangers to the hapless mariner ; but as 

 wicked agents, connected, somehow or other, in creating them. " No- 

 body," say they, " can tell anything of where they come from, or how 

 they breed, though (as sailors sometimes say) it is supposed that they 

 hatch their eggs under their wings as they sit on the water." This 

 mysterious uncertainty of their origin, and the circumstances above 

 recited, have doubtless given rise to the opinion so prevalent among this 

 class of men, that they are in some way or other connected with that per- 

 sonage who has been styled the Prince of the Power of the Air. In 

 every country where they are known, their names have borne some 

 affinity to this belief. They have been called Witches ;'\ Stormy Pe- 

 trels ; the Devil's Birds; Mother Carey's Chickens,^ probably from 

 some celebrated ideal hag of that name ; and their unexpected and nu- 

 merous appearance has frequently thrown a momentary damp over the 

 mind of the hardiest seaman. 



It is the business of the naturahst, and the glory of philosophy, to 



* Procellaria Wilsnnn, Bonaparte, Journal Acad. Nat. Sc. Ph. vol. lu., p. 231. 

 — It is not the P. pelagica; of course the synonymes quoted by our author do not 

 belong to this bird. 



t Arct. Zool. p. 464. 



X This name seems to have been originally given them by Captain Carteret's 

 sailors, who met with these birds on the coast of Chili. See Hawkesworth's Voy- 

 ages, vol. I., p. 203. 



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