180 PETISEL. 



This species is found in the northern parts of Great Britain ; is in 

 the greatest plenty in the Isle of St. Kilda, where it appears in 

 November, and remains the whole year, except September and 

 October. It lays one large, white, and very brittle egg, and the young 

 is hatched the middle of June; very common in Greenland,* and 

 parts adjacent, frequently seen in vast numbers, passing in the 

 manner of the Passenger Pigeon of America; and of great use to 

 the inhabitants for food, the flesh being eaten boiled or dried,, 

 although it is very stinking and otfensive ; the fat is eaten crude, or 

 burned in lamps instead of oil ; and the small pouch of the under 

 jaw is formed into a bladder, to buoy up their lesser kind of darts, 

 by means of which the natives often kill the bird itself, while sitting 

 at rest on the surface of the water; for it is heedless, and will suffer 

 any one to approach near; hence is called Mallemucke, or Foolish 

 Fly, by the Dutch.f 



The food of this species for the most part is fish ; but they eagerly 

 seize every thing that can be converted into food, and every filth 

 from the ships, which they frequently follow; though the sailors are 

 not pleased with their company, having a notion, that they forbode 

 tempests, or at least very stormy weather. Are often seen by 

 thousands on the carcase of a dead whale, and pick out the fat, 

 which soon becoming liquid in the stomach, enables the old birds 

 to eject it into the mouths of their young, for their sustenance, while 

 in the nest; and on occasions are known to throw it out with violence, 

 both from the mouth and nostrils, into the faces of those who attempt 

 to seize them; and is one, if not almost the only, defence that they 

 make against an enemy. 



We find these birds common between Kamtschatka and America, 

 where they are blended with others, under the common name of 

 Glupisha, and are so stupid, as frequently to fly into the boats of the 



* Breed on the craggy shore on the west of Disco, and other places remote from the 

 Continent in great numbers. — Faun, groenl. Phipps's Voy. 186. 



f At Newfoundland called John Down, by the Fishermen. See Orn. Diet. Supp. 



