WILSON'S PETREL. 
107 
you glide over the curling eddies caused by the motion of the rudder. You 
shall have all possible attention paid you, and I will crawl to the camboose, 
in search of food to support your tiny frames in this hour of need. But at 
length, night closes around, and I bid you farewell. 
The gale is over ; the clear blue of the sky looks deafer than ever, the 
sun’s rays are brighter, on the quiet waters the ship seems to settle in repose, 
and her wings, though widely spread, no longer swell with the breeze. At 
a distance around us the dusky wanderers are enjoying the bright morning ; 
the rudder-fish, yesterday so lively, has ended its career, so violently was it 
beaten by the waves against the vessel; and now thePetrels gather around 
it, as it floats on the surface. Various other matters they find ; here a small 
crab,. there the fragments of a sea-plant. Low over the deep they range, 
and now with little steps run on the waters. Few are their notes, but great 
their pleasure, at this moment. It is needless for me to feed them now, 
and therefore I will return to my task. 
It would be extremely difficult for any individual io determine the extent 
of the movements of the three species of Petrel seen on the waters of the 
Atlantic. My opinion is that until their breeding places are repeatedly 
visited by naturalists, little can be known respecting the range of their flight. 
I have crossed the ocean many times, and have always paid more or less 
attention to these birds ; yet I am as ignorant of their migrations as my pre- 
decessors. I have rarely seen Wilson’s Petrel farther to the eastward than 
the Azores, and beyond these islands it generally abandoned the vessel. 
Along the American coast, I have not met with it to the northward beyond 
the 51st degree of latitude ; while to the southward I have rarely observed 
many on the Gulf of Mexico ; nor do I believe that any breed on the shores 
of the Floridas, or on the Bahama Islands, as alleged by Wilson, who, it 
would appear, stated so from report. Petrels are rarely destroyed by men, 
quadrupeds, or rapacious birds, when breeding ; to the former they are of no 
value as an article of food, and by the latter they are seldom sought after ; 
consequently they are more likely to return to their breeding places than 
most other birds, many of which are frequently induced to abandon them on 
account of the persecutions to which they are subjected. I have found the 
Forked-tailed Petrel breeding on our coast, in the fissures of rocks above 
the reach of the spray, and Wilson’s digging for itself burrows in the sand 
or loose earth, on low islands. The Thalassidroma pelagica I have never 
found breeding on any part of our coast ; but it is well known that it resorts 
to holes on certain of the Shetland Islands, among the blocks and stones of 
which the breaches are formed ; though it appears that in some spots, where 
the fishermen are in the habit of destroying them, many resort to the 
elevated fissures of the rocks, where also a few of the Forked-tailed species 
