STORMY PETREL. 
385 
they are silent, and wander widely over the ocean. This 
easily accounts for the vast distance they are sometimes seen 
from land even in the breeding season. The rapidity of 
their flight is at least equal to the fleetness of our Swallows. 
Calculating this at the rate of one mile per minute, twelve 
hours would be sufficient to waft them a distance of seven 
hundred and twenty miles ; but it is probable that the far 
greater part confine themselves much nearer land during that 
interesting period. 
In the month of July, while on a voyage from New Orleans 
to New York, I saw few or none of these birds in the Gulf of 
Mexico, although our ship was detained there by calms for 
twenty days, and carried by currents as far south as Cape 
Antonio, the westernmost extremity of Cuba. On entering 
the gulf stream, and passing along the coasts of Florida and 
the Carolinas, these birds made their appearance in great 
numbers, and in all weathers, contributing much by their 
sprightly evolutions of wing to enliven the scene, and affording 
me every day several hours of amusement. It is indeed an 
interesting sight to observe these little birds in a gale, coursing 
over the waves, down the declivities, up the ascents of the 
foaming surf that threatens to burst over their heads, sweeping 
along the hollow troughs of the sea as in a sheltered valley, 
and again mounting with the rising billow, and just above its 
surface occasionally dropping its feet, which, striking the 
water, throws it up again with additional force ; sometimes 
leaping, with both legs parallel, on the surface of the roughest 
waves for several yards at a time. Meanwhile it continues 
coursing from side to side of the ship’s wake, making excur- 
sions far and wide, to the right and to the left, now a great 
way a-head, and now shooting astern for several hundred 
yards, returning again to the ship as if she were all the while 
stationary, though perhaps running at the rate of ten knots an 
hour ! But the most singular peculiarity of this bird is its 
faculty of standing, and even running, on the surface of the 
water, which it performs with apparent facility. When any 
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