90 



STORMY PETREL. 

 PEOCELLABIA PELAGICA. 

 [Plate LX.— Fig. 6.] 



Arct. Zool. JVo. 464. — Le Petrel ^ ou VOiseau tempete, PI. Enl. 993. — Bewick, II, 223 Pe ale's J?fit- 



sewn, JV'o. 3034. 



THERE are few persons who have crossed the Atlantic, or 

 traversed much of the ocean, who have not observed these solitary 

 wanderers of the deep, skimming along the surface of the wild and 

 wasteful ocean; flitting past the vessel like Swallows, or following 

 in her wake, gleaning their scanty pittance of food from the rough 

 and whirling surges. Habited in mourning, and making their ap- 

 pearance generally in greater numbers previous to or during a 

 storm, they have long been fearfully regarded by the ignorant and 

 superstitious, not only as the foreboding messengers of tempests 

 and dangers to the hapless mariner; but as wicked agents, con- 

 nected, some how or other, in creating them. "Nobody,^" say 

 they, " can tell any thing of where they come come from, or how 

 they breed, though (as sailors sometimes say) it is supposed that 

 they hatch their eggs under their wings as they sit on the water.'^ 

 This mysterious uncertainty of their origin and the circumstances 

 above recited, have doubtless given rise to the opinion so preva- 

 lent among this class of men, that they are in some way or other 

 connected with that personage who has been styled the prince of 

 the Power of the Air. In every country where they are known, 

 their names have borne some affinity to this belief. They have 

 been called Witches;^ Stormy Petrels; the DeviVs Birds; Mother 



=^ Aret. Zool. p. 46*. 



