THE STORMY PETREL 
295 
without seeing the dear little Stormy Petrel , 1 
or “Mother Carey’s Chicken,” as it is called 
by sailormen. After the last gull has been left- 
far behind, and there are about two miles of 
water under the ship, in the trough between 
two waves there suddenly glides into view a 
pair of small black wings, fluttering rapidly, 
while two little webbed feet work violently to 
pat the concave surface of the deep blue water. 
Those who do not know the creature exclaim 
in surprise, “What in the world is that f” 
“That” is one of the wonders of the ocean 
world. The cause for surprise is that so small 
and weak a creature — the smallest of all the 
web-footed birds, no larger, and seemingly no 
stronger than a cat-bird — should live on the 
watery wastes of a landless ocean, eating, sleeping 
and enjoying literally “a life on the ocean wave, 
and a home on the rolling deep.” 
1 Pro-cel-la' ri-a pe-lag'i-ca. Length, 5.50 inches. 
Even when seas are calm, and skies are clear, 
one cannot easily imagine how this creature 
can live, and find its food. But when a pro- 
longed storm sets in, and for ten days, or two 
weeks at a stretch the surface of the sea is a 
seething, boiling caldron, with every wave a 
ragged “white-cap” and every square foot of 
the sea fretted like a fish-net by the force of the 
wind, how does the frail little Stormy Petrel 
survive? 
You nearly always see this bird in the trough 
of the sea, skimming so low that its feet can 
paddle upon the surface of the water, and assist 
the wings. It is a black bird, with a large white 
patch on the rump, just above the tail. It 
rests upon the water fully half its time, I should 
say, and aside from the table and galley refuse 
thrown overboard from vessels, the bulk of its 
food must consist of the tiny crustaceans that 
inhabit the floating bunches of sargasso weed. 
