280 
LITTLE PETER, 
applied to them because, in searching for food, they fly close 
to the surface, and while hovering or stooping, let down 
their feet, and pat the water Avith them ; so they seem, as 
it were, to run on the waves. The common name. Petrel, 
or Little Peter, given to the whole of this family, has refer- 
ence to the Apostle Peter's walking upon the water. 
The Storm Petrels are the smallest of those birds which, 
being furnished with a membrane between the toes, are 
peculiarly adapted for swimming. Diminutive as they are, 
and therefore, as one might naturally think, less able than 
the larger species to withstand the violence of the winds 
and waves, they are those which venture farthest from land, 
being often met with in the very middle of the Atlantic 
Ocean. 
STOIIM PETREL. 
The predominating colours of the Storm Petrels are 
greyish black and sooty brown. Three of the species above 
named have a patch of white, more or less distinct, about 
the base of the tail ; the sexes are similarly coloured, and 
the young differ only in having the tints lighter. Mac- 
gillivray says of these birds, that : — 
They are in a great measure nocturnal, being most active in the 
dusk summer nights, and in gloomy weather. During winter and 
spring they roam over the seas^ and in the beginning of summer 
