100 
AMERICAN STORMY PETREL. 
often sat in the evening, in the boat which was suspended at the 
ship’s stern, watching their movements, until it was so dark that 
the eye could no longer follow them, tho I could still hear their 
low note of weet weet, as they approached near to the vessel below 
me. 
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, formed seve- 
ral distinct species ; consequently, relying on the labors of his pre- 
decessors, 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 having resulted in the con- 
viction 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 in- 
quiry has established the fact that the American Stormy Petrel, 
hitherto supposed to be the true Pelagicci, is an entirely distinct 
species. For this discovery we are indebted to the labors of Mr. 
Charles Bonaparte, from whose interesting paper on the subject, 
published in the Journal 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. 
Kilda, but which the former found diffused over a great part of 
the Atlantic, east of the Banks of Newfoundland; and thirdly, the 
species of our coasts. He also indicates a fourth, which inhabits 
the Pacific ocean ; but whether or not this last be in reality a spe- 
cies different from those named, has not yet been determined. 
“ When I first procured this species,” says Mr. Bonaparte, 
“ I considered it a nondescript, and noted it as such ; the citation 
of Wilson’s pelagica, among the synonymes of the true pelagica, 
by the most eminent ornithologist of the age, M. Temminck, not 
