STORMY PETREL. 
267 
small mollusca. Their flesh is rank, oily, and unpleasant 
to the taste. Their food is even converted into oil by the 
digestive process, and they abound with it to such a degree 
that, according to Brunnich, the inhabitants of the Faro Isles 
make their carcases serve the purpose of a candle by draw- 
ing a wick through the mouth and rump, which being lighted, 
the flame is for a considerable time supported by the fat and 
oil of the body. 
Audubon led Nuttall astray regarding the breeding of Wilson’s 
Petrel, confounding it with Leach’s Petrel. The nesting-place of 
the present species and the appearance of the egg were unknown 
until a few years ago, when the members of the Transit of Venus 
Expedition discovered a colony of the birds on Kerguelen Island, 
in the Southern Ocean, and brought back some of the eggs, which 
were taken during January and February. 
Wilson’s Petrel, therefore, would have little reason upon which 
to rest a claim to be ranked as an “ American ” bird, were it not 
for the “three mile-limit” clause in international law. These 
birds come towards the shore and into the harbors and creeks in 
search of food. They have been met with all along our coast, from 
northern Labrador to the tropics, for they are true cosmopolitans. 
SI’ORMY PETREL. 
MOTHER CAREY’S CHICKEN. 
Procellaria PEIAGICA. 
Char General plumage sooty black or blackish brown; upper tail 
feathers white, tipped with black; tail square or slightly rounded ; bill, 
legs, and feet black. Length about inches. 
Mv/ Usually in a burrow, sometimes in a crevice of a rock or amid 
loose stones ; generally a thin cushion of weed-stems or grass, but often 
the egg is laid on the bare soil. 
I ; white, faintly marked with fine spots of reddish brown ; aver- 
age size 1. 1 5 X 0.85 
Of the three species of Swallow-like Petrels that are seen regu- 
larly on the North Atlantic, the present is the rarest; and this is 
seldom seen near the shore, and never south of New England. It 
breeds abundantly on the British Islands and along the coast of 
Norway, and is said to breed in the Mediterranean Sea, on the 
