At Sea, North Atlantic.
1909.
August 1 [August 1, 1909]
Noon obs. Lat. 46.38 N.; Lon. 33.37 W.
  Most of forenoon cloudy with low, white-capped waves
driven before a strong southerly wind. In the afternoon
the clouds scattered & almost disappeared, the wind lessened
and the sun shone bright and warm on the wide expanse
of ocean heaving only very slightly, with long, pulsating swells,
and scarce ruffled by the light yet steady breeze.
Two small school of Porpoises were seen soon after breakfast
but no birds of any kind were noticed until about 4 P.M.
From then up to 6.30 or a little later large Petrels, which
may have been Puffini and possibly P. major, although they did
not look nor act just like that species, were constantly in sight, either
on wing or floating singly or in flocks, on the water. I
counted 62 birds in one flock, 28 in another, from 6 to
12 or 15 in several others. At a distance they looked like 
"bedded" Gulls sitting close together, floating very lightly and
showing very white. As the steamer neared them they would 
string out in single file and begin swimming rather rapidly
to windward i.e. to the right of her camber. When we
were within 50 to 100 yards they would take flight,
rising to windward rather clumsily, the webbed feet
assisting the long narrow wings for the first yard or two.
As soon as they got well clear of the water they invariably
scattered and pursued more or less independent lines of
flight. Indeed I did not once see any of them flying
in flocks although all took the same general course
to the southward as did all which passed the steamer
without alighting. In all I must have seen over 500
birds of this species in the course of about two hours
& occasionally as many as 40 or 50 were in sight
at once. Their flight was easy yet not especially graceful