THE STORM PETREL. 
423 
casion, so many as twenty in a flock. They were once so tame, 
when the weather was gloomy, though not very stormy, as to 
come close to the gunnel of the small boat that he was in, to which 
they were afterwards attracted by bits of sprats laid there for 
them. One bird ventured twice or thrice to carry off portions of 
the fish. On another occasion one appeared desirous of perching 
on the mast of the boat, and made several vain attempts to do so. 
During a prevalence of rather stormy weather, in November 1835, 
a storm petrel was found dead near Bandon, county Cork. In a 
garden near Waterford, and five miles from the sea, a dead one was 
picked up in October 1848.^ This species is remarked to be some- 
times seen after very stormy weather in Bantry Bay, and frequently 
in fine weather off Cape Clear and the Mizen. On the eastern coast 
it does not thus appear : — Mr. B. J. Montgomery, who has had 
much experience in shooting about the bays of Dublin and 
Drogheda, never met with the bird but once — early in Sep- 
tember 1850, at the latter place — when a single individual 
skimmed close past the boat in which he was, while reloading 
his gun after having fired at a tern. 
In a communication which I made to the 3rd volume of the 
f Annals of Natural History ' (p. 182), entitled — <f Note on the 
effects of the hurricane of January 7th, 1839, in Ireland, on some 
Birds, Dishes, kc.” it was said of the species at present under con-, 
sideration — “As maybe conjectured, storm petrels ( Thalassidromae ) 
were taken in many parts of the country ; and chiefly during the 
latter part of the day of the 7th after the hurricane had ceased. 
At two o 5 clock p.m., or just about its termination, one of these 
birds was picked up alive, but in a very exhausted state, in one of 
the streets of Belfast, and two were found dead near the Castle, 
Lisburn. On the 10th inst., two others, one of which I saw, and 
found to be T. pelagica, were taken — the one alive, the other 
dead — beside a spring-well at Seymour Hill, about four miles 
from Belfast. Near Saintfield in the county of Down, distant 
about ten miles, a petrel was said to have been obtained after the 
hurricane. 
* Dr. R. J. Burkitt. 
