262 
STORMY PETREL. 
tlie ship’s stern, watching their movements, until it was so dark 
that the eye could no longer follow them, though I could still 
hear their low note of weet weet, as they approached near to 
the vessel below me. 
These birds are sometimes driven by violent storms to a con- 
siderable distance inland. One was shot some years ago on the 
river Schuylkill, near Philadelphia; and Bewick mentions their 
being found in various quarters of the interior of England. 
From the nature of their food, their flesh is rank and disagree- 
able; though they sometimes become so fat, that, as Mr. Pen- 
nant, on the authority of Brunnich, asserts, ‘'the inhabitants 
of the Feroe isles make them serve the purposes of a candle, 
by drawing a wick through the mouth and rump, which being 
lighted, the flame is fed by the fat and oil of the body.”* 
Note. When this work was published, its author was not aware 
that those birds observed by navigators in almost every quarter of 
the globe, and known under the name of Stormy Petrels, form- 
ed several distinct species; consequently, relying on the labours 
of his predecessors, he did not hesitate to name the subject of 
this chapter the Pelagica, believing it to be identical with that 
of Europe. But the investigations of later ornithologists hav- 
ing resulted in the conviction that Europe possessed at least two 
species of these birds, it became a question whether or not those 
which are common on the coasts of the United States would 
form a third species; and an inquiry has established the fact that 
the American Stormy Petrel, hitherto supposed to be the true 
Pelagica, is an entirely distinct species. For this discovery 
we are indebted to the lal)ours of Charles Bonaparte, from 
whose interesting paper on the subject, published in the Jour- 
nal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, we 
shall take the liberty of making an extract. The author of the 
paper in question first describes and figures the true Pelagica 
of the systems; secondly, the Leachii, a species described by 
Temminck, and restricted to the vicinity of the island of St. 
Brit. Zool. vol. ii, p. 434. 
