The Leach Petrels 



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HAUNT OF BEAL PETREL 



THE STATION IS THE ONE SHOWN ON PAGE 201 1. MR. CLAY HAS JUST RELEASED A BEAL PETREL, WHICH MAY BE 

 DISCERNED AT THE LEFT. (LOOK FOR A FLY SPECK.) 



portion of the island once or twice, the thought occurred to us that there 

 might be Petrels there. Judge of our surprise, however, when we found 

 the vegetable mold a perfect labyrinth of Petrel burrows! So light was 

 the accumulation in point of density (once the growing blades were pene- 

 trated) and so abundant the birds that one had only to dig with the hands, 

 dog-fashion, and birds, eggs, and young were the invariable result. The 

 whole half-acre of grass proper was a seething mass of Petrels. Yet from all 

 that host not a sound to betray their presence ! The sun shone calmly and 

 the breeze blew benignly. Nothing disturbed the serenity of the day save 

 the restless quaverings of the always hostile gulls. There was nothing, in 

 short, to indicate that beneath our feet lay a buried city, not once popu- 

 lous and now deserted, but now teeming with life, a city of storm-waifs, 

 gathered from an expanse of a thousand watery leagues, a city perhaps 

 more populous than any other colony of the class Aves within a hundred 



20IQ 



