386 
STORMY PETREL. 
greasy matter is thrown overboard, these birds instantly collect 
around it, and facing to windward, with their long wings 
expanded, and their webbed feet patting the water, the light” 
ness of their bodies and the action of the wind on their wings 
enable them to do this with ease. In calm weather they 
perform the same manoeuvre, by keeping their wings just so 
much in action as to prevent their feet from sinking below the 
surface. According to Buffbn,* it is from this singular habit 
that the whole genus have obtained the name Petrel, from the 
apostle Peter, who, as Scripture informs us, also walked on 
the water. 
As these birds often come up immediately under the stern, 
one can examine their form and plumage with nearly as much 
accuracy as if they were in the hand. They fly with the 
wings forming an almost straight horizontal line with the body* 
the legs extended behind, and the feet partly seen stretching 
beyond the tail. Their common note of 45 weet y weet ,” is 
scarcely louder than that of a young Duck of a week old, and 
much resembling it. During the whole of a dark, wet, and 
boisterous night which I spent on deck, they flew about the 
after rigging, making a singular hoarse chattering, which in 
sound resembled the syllables patret tu cuk cuk tu tu , laying 
the accent strongly on the second syllable tret . Now and then 
I conjectured that they alighted on the rigging, making then 
a lower curring noise. 
Notwithstanding the superstitious fears of the seamen, who 
dreaded the vengeance of the survivors, I shot fourteen of these 
birds one calm day in lat. 38°, eighty or ninety miles off the 
coast of Carolina, and had the boat lowered to pick them up. 
These I examined with considerable attention, and found the 
most perfect specimens as follow : — 
Length, six inches and three quarters ; extent, thirteen 
inches and a half; bill, black; nostrils, united in a tubular 
projection, the upper mandible grooved from thence, and 
* Buffon, tome xxiii. p. 299. 
