162 
SEA-BIRDS AND WEATHER-TOKENS. 
ordinary, foretoken stormy and blustering weather." Another tells 
us of "ducks, mallards, and all water- fowls," that "when they bathe 
themselves much, prune their feathers, and flicker, or clap themselves 
with their wings, it is a sign of rain or wind." And, he adds, it 
is the same with " cormorants and gulls." Bany Cornwall has 
immortalized the old fancy respecting the stormy petrel ; — 
■' O'er the deep ! o'er the deep ! 
Where the whale, and the shark, and the sword-fish sleep, 
Outflying the blast and the driving rain, 
The petrel telleth her tale in vain ; 
^ For the mariner curseth the warning bird 
Who bringeth him news of the storms unheard. 
Ah ! thus does the prophet of good or ill 
Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still I 
Yet he never falters. So, petrel, spring 
Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing." 
JVIacgiUivray remarks that the several species of stormy petrels — 
so called because they seem to walk upon the water, like the Apostle 
Peter — are confounded by mariners under the general name of " Mother 
Carey's chickens ; " and that they are held in abhorrence by sailors, 
— being supposed to prognosticate stormy weather, especially when 
they fly around a vessel or in her wake. The circumstances under 
which they approach ships are not correctly stated. According to 
some authorities, they come up before a gale for shelter ; their rapidity 
of flight enabling them to outstrip it. Othei-s allege that, in calm 
or rough weather, before a calm and before a gale, they equally 
make their appearance; with the simple object of picking up the 
fragments of food raised by the agitation of the water, or such as 
are thrown overboard. 
The Wiltshire rustics were accustomed to say, — probably they 
are wiser now, — 
" When dotterel do first appear, it shows that frost is very near; 
But when that dotterel do go, then )-ou may look for heavy snow ; " 
a couplet which may be understood as expressing a certain amount of 
" seasonable " truth. Pennant records that " the great auk," a bird 
now extinct, "is observed by seamen never to wander beyond sound- 
