142 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
side in the night-time, and in their flight make a 
disagreeable noise like owls, which bird they also 
resemble in their dislike of the day, when they are 
hid in holes in the mountains, where they are easily 
caught. This is done by stopping up some of the 
holes which lead to their hiding-places and placing 
empty bags over the rest, which communicate under- 
ground with those stopped. The birds, at their usual 
time of going forth to seek their food in the night- 
time, finding their passage impeded, make to the 
holes covered with the bags, into which entering, 
great numbers of them are caught.” 
Though hardly accepting the statement by the moun- 
taineers that a bird so far-flying could be exterminated 
by a merely local disturber, I was obliged to admit 
that it no longer inhabited its old homes. For two 
hours we prolonged the search, cold and wet, but 
found nothing to reward us. We saw, to be sure, 
many cracks and crannies in the rocks where a dia- 
blotin might have hidden, but no long holes, such as 
those made by the “ Mother Cary’s chickens” in the 
Bay of Fundy. ‘There, five years previously, I had 
drawn many a petrel from the end of a long, winding 
hole, as it sat quietly upon its single egg; but this 
other petrel (for it is a giant petrel, probably the Przon 
Caribbea) was not to be found, and I departed sor- 
rowfully down the mountain, to look for shelter. 
We were at such an altitude that mist and rain con- 
stantly surrounded us. The fierce wind, that always 
blows from the eastward, nearly swept us over the 
narrow crest. Thunder boomed beneath and around 
us, and rain fell in torrents at times, and the view I 
had hoped to obtain of the fairest group of islands in 
