THE STORMY PETREL. 
136 
or been driven from their general stations by tempes- 
tuous weather. An event like this, the violent gale of 
All-hallows eve, in 1824, brought to us the stormy 
petrel (procellaria pelagica) ; a bird that resides far in 
the depths of the ocean, does not approach our shores, 
it is believed, except for the purposes of incubation, 
and we know only one place, the Isle of Sky, that it 
haunts even for this short period. It is a creature 
— “ that roams on her sea-wing, 
Unfatigued, and ever sleeps, 
Calm, upon the toiling deeps.” 
It is a pretty good manifestation of the strength and 
extent of that hurricane, which could catch up a bird 
with a wing so powerful as to enable it to riot in the 
whirlwind and enjoy the storm, and bear it away irre- 
sistibly, perhaps, from the Atlantic waves, over such a 
space of land and ocean, and then dash it down on a 
rather elevated common in this parish, whence it was 
brought to me in a very perfect state. This little crea- 
ture, scarcely as big again as a swallow, and the smallest 
of all our web-footed birds, has, like all the others of 
its genus, that extraordinary tube on its upper mandi- 
ble, through which it spirts out an oily matter when 
irritated ; but the real object of this singular provision 
seems unknown. Our seamen amuse themselves during 
the monotony of a voyage with the vagaries of “mother 
Carey’s chickens,” as they have from very early times 
called this bird. The petrels seem to repose in a com- 
mon breeze, but upon the approach, or during the con- 
tinuation, of a gale, they surround a ship, and catch up 
the small animals which the agitated ocean brings near 
the surface, or any food that may be dropped from the 
vessel. Whisking with the celerity of an arrow through 
the deep valleys of the -abyss, and darting away over 
the foaming crest of some mountain wave, they attend 
the laboring bark in all her perilous course. When the 
storm subsides they retire to rest, and are no more seen. 
The presence of this petrel was thought in times past 
to predict a storm, and it was consequently looked upon 
as an unwelcome visitant. 
