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SVVIMiMERS. 
seek out the resorts of the whale, on whose carcase and those 
of other cetaceous animals they often make a gratifying feast, 
and are well known to the whale-fishers who frequent these 
hyperboreal seas. They attend the ships in all their progress. 
Emphatically birds of the tempest, these Petrels ride securely 
amidst its horrors, profiting by the agitation and destruction 
which it spreads around. Aware of the object which the 
whaler has in quest, they follow the vessel and watch the 
result. As soon as a whale is moored to the side of the ship 
and begins to be cut up, an immense muster takes place, 
sometimes exceeding a thousand, of these greedy birds, all 
stationed in the rear, watching tor the morsels which are wafted 
to leeward. The peculiar chuckling note by which they ex- 
press their eager expectation, their voracity when seizing on 
the fat, and the large pieces which they swallow, the envy 
shown towards those who have obtained the largest of these 
morsels, and often the violent measures taken to wrest it from 
them, afford to the sailors curious and amusing spectacles. 
The surface of the sea is sometimes so covered with them that 
a stone cannot be thrown without one being struck. When an 
alarm is given, innumerable wings are instantly in motion, and 
the birds, striking their feet against the water to aid their 
flight, cause a loud and thundering plash. 
I he Petrel is not uncommon in some of the islands off the 
north of Scotland. At St. Kilcla, one of the Hebrides, it 
breeds, and supplies the inhabitants with a vast quantity of 
oil, which is used for culinary as well as medicinal purposes 
According to Pennant, “ no bird is of such use to the islanders 
as Uiis ; It supplies oil for their lamps, down for their beds, a 
delicacy for their tables, a balm for their wounds, and a medi 
cine for their distempers.” He adds “that it is a certain 
prognostication of the change of winds. If it come to land, 
no west wind is expected for some time, and the contrary 
when it returns and keeps to sea.” 
Its food is chiefly fish, particularly those that are the most 
fat ; its stomach is indeed generally charged with oil, which it 
has the power of ejecting forcibly from the bill and nostrils as 
