3 go STORMY PE TREE. 



the night, with the superabundant oily food from their 

 stomachs. At these times they may be heard making a con- 

 tinued cluttering sound like frogs during the whole night. 

 In the day they are silent, and wander widely over the ocean. 

 This easily accounts for the vast distance they are sometimes 

 seen from land, even in the breeding season. The rapidity of 

 their flight is at least equal to the fleetness of our swallows. 

 Calculating this at the rate of one mile per minute, twelve 

 hours would be sufficient to waft them a distance of seven 

 hundred and twenty miles ; but it is probable that the far 

 greater part confine themselves much nearer land during that 

 interesting period. 



In the month of July, while on a voyage from New Orleans 

 to New York, I saw few or none of these birds in the Gulf of 

 Mexico, although our ship was detained there by calms for 

 twenty days, and carried by currents as far south as Cape 

 Antonio, the westernmost extremity of Cuba. On entering 

 the Gulf Stream, and passing along the coasts of Florida and 

 the Carolinas, these birds made their appearance in great 

 numbers, and in all weathers, contributing much by their 

 sprightly evolutions of wing to enliven the scene, and affording 

 me every day several hours of amusement. It is indeed an 

 interesting sight to observe these little birds in a gale, coursing 

 over the waves, down the declivities, up the ascents of the 

 foaming surf that threatens to burst over their heads, sweeping 

 along the hollow troughs of the sea as in a sheltered valley, 

 and again mounting with the rising billow, and just above 

 its surface, occasionally dropping its feet, which, striking the 

 water, throws it up again with additional force ; sometimes 

 leaping, with both legs parallel, on the surface of the roughest 

 waves for several yards at a time. Meanwhile it continues 

 coursing from side to side of the ship's wake, making excur- 

 sions far and wide to the right hand and to the left, now a great 

 way ahead, and now shooting astern for several hundred yards, 

 returning again to the ship as if she were all the while sta- 

 tionary, though perhaps running at the rate of ten knots an 



