AMERICAN STORMY PETREL. 
97 
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 ; sweep- 
ing along the hollow troughs of the sea as in a shelteied valley, 
and again mounting with the rising billow, and just abo\ e its sui - 
face, occasionally dropping their feet, which, sti iking tlxc uatei, 
throw them 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 they eontinue coursing from side to 
side of the ship’s wake, making exeursions far and wide, to the 
right and to the left, now a great way ahead, and now shooting 
astern for several hundred yards, returning again to the ship as if 
she were all the while stationary, tho perhaps running at the rate 
of ten knots an hour ! But the most singular peeuliarity of this bird 
is its faculty of standing, and even running, on the surface of the 
water, whieh it performs with apparent facility. When any 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 lightness 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 then- 
feet from sinking below the surface. According to Buffon,* 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 
* Tome xxiii, p. 299. 
2 B 
VOL. VII. 
