PHALAllOPE. 
365 
its true light. “ The Petrels,” says he, seem to repose in a common 
breeze, but, upon the approach or during the continuation 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 over the foaming crest of some moun- 
tain wave, they attend the labouring- bark in all her perilous course. 
When the storm subsides they retire to rest and are no more seen.” > 
Would our author, then, have us to infer that they sleep during a calm, 
and only feed when roused by the roar of a storm. 
In a voyage to America, Colonel Montagu noticed two or three 
small congregations, and these generally followed the ship for se- 
veral hours, flying round, and playing about in the manner of swal- 
lows, frequently stooping to pick up bits of biscuit thrown over for 
the purpose. Fortunately, however, we looked in vain each time for 
the accompanying tempest, which these bewitched chickens of Mother 
Cary were supposed to forbode. Sailors, naturally superstitious, have 
always considered this little bird the forerunner of stormy and tempes- 
tuous weather, as the appearance of the kingfisher denoted fine weather, 
denominated the halcyon days by the ancients. These auguries, how- 
ever, may be founded in fact, for as the kingfisher is only seen on the 
sea-shores, or on the coasts of bays and estuaries in the temperate 
months, so the Petrel, whose rapid wing outstrips the wind, flies from 
the storm, and in its passage over the vast Atlantic, may truly warn 
the mariner of the approaching tempest. Thus all that is related is 
not fiction ; thousands have witnessed the tempest that has succeeded 
the appearance of these little harbingers of Aiolus ; the fact is only 
known to the mariner, he does not reason upon the occurrence, and, 
unable to account for their sudden appearance, calls in the aid of super- 
stition. The body is of so oily a nature, that if a wick is drawn through 
from the mouth to the vent and lighted, it will burn as a lamp ; and it is 
said to be actually used for that purpose in the Ferroe Islands. Some 
few instances are recorded of its being killed far inland ; one is men- 
tioned in Latham’s synopsis to have been shot at Oxford. We are 
also informed that some are annually seen on the western part of the 
peninsula of Cornwall, about Marazion and Penzance ; in the former 
of which places we saw one that was taken. 
PETTYCHAPS. — A name for the Fauvette and the Chiff-chaif. 
PHALAROPE (^Phalaropus platyrJiinchus, Temminck.) 
* Tringa Lobata, Linn, Syst. 1. p. 249. 8 — Gmel. Syst. 2. p. QIA .. — Flem. Br Anim. 
p. 100. — Grey Phalarope, Lath. Syn. 5. p. 272. a young bird in winter plumage. 
‘ Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 196. 3d. edit. 
