94 



STORMY PETREL. 



name Petrel, from the apostle Peter, who, as Scriptm^e informs us, 

 also walked on the water. 



As these birds often eome up immediately under the stern, one 

 can examine their form and plumage with nearly as much accuracy 

 as if they were in the hand. They fly with the wings forming an 

 almost straight horizontal line with the body, the legs extended 

 behind, and the feet partly seen stretching beyond the tail. Their 

 common note of "weetj weetj^ is scarcely louder than that of a 

 young Duck of a week old, and much resembling it. During the 

 whole of a dark, wet and boisterous night which I spent on deck, 

 they flew about the after rigging, making a singular hoarse chat- 

 tering, which in sound resembled the syllables patret tu cuk cuk tii 

 tUj laying the accent strongly on the second syllable tret. Now 

 and then I conjectured that they alighted on the rigging, making 

 then a lower curring noise. 



Notwithstanding the superstitious fears of the seamen, who 

 dreaded the vengeance of the survivors, I shot fourteen of these 

 birds one calm day in lat. SS"*, eighty or ninety miles off* the coast 

 of Carolina, and had the boat lowered to pick them up. These I 

 examined with considerable attention, and found the most perfect 

 specimens as follow. 



Length six inches and three quarters, extent thirteen inches 

 and a half; bill black, nostrils united in a tubular projection, the 

 upper mandible grooved from thence, and overhanging the lower 

 like that of a bird of prey; head, back and lower parts brown sooty 

 black; greater wing coverts pale brown, minutely tipt with white; 

 sides of the vent and whole tail coverts pure white; wings and tail 

 deep black, the latter nearly even at the tip, or very slightly fork- 

 ed; in some specimens two or three of the exterior tail feathers 

 were white for an inch or so at the root; legs and naked part of 

 the thighs black; feet webbed, with the slight rudiments of a hind 

 toe; the membrane of the foot is marked with a spot of straw yel- 



