Crass II. STORMY PETREL. 
it is always at sea, and is seen all over the vast 
Atlantic ocean, at the greatest distance from 
land ; often following the vessels in great flocks, 
to pick up any thing that falls from on board ; 
for trial sake, chopped straw has been flung into 
the sea, which they would stand on with expand- 
ed wings ; but were never observed to settie on, 
er swim in the water; it presages bad weather, 
and cautions the seamen of the approach of a 
tempest, by collecting under the stern of the 
ships; it braves the utmost fury of the storm, 
‘sometimes skimming with incredible velocity 
along the hollows of the waves, sometimes on 
the summits: Clusius makes it the Camilia of 
the sea. 
Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti 
Ferret iter, celeres nec tingeret equore plantas. VIRGIL. 
She swept the seas, and as she skim’d along, 
Her flying feet unbath’d on billows hung. Drypen. 
These birds are the Cypselli of Pliny, which 
he places among the Apodes of Aristotle ; not 
because they wanted feet, but were Kaxoroda *, 
or had bad, or useless ones; an attribute he 
gives to these species, on a supposition they 
rs] e . 
were almost always on the wing. Hardouin, a 
critic quite unskilled in natural history, imagines 
them to be martins, the Cypselli of Aristotle} : 
* Arist. 17. + P. 1067. 
VOL, II, P 
09 
