BIRDS AND POETRY. 
441 
a conspicuous part in sailors’ yarns and sea-tiles, fore¬ 
telling good or evil fortune according as they appear: 
the sailor looks upon them as sacred beings. The man¬ 
ner in which they show themselves is the origin of the 
seamen’s legend. They are rarely seen in calm weather; 
but when, however, the stonn-driven ship is tossed like 
a ball from billow to billow, they immediately appear, 
and follow in the. track of the labouring craft. It is 
marvellous how they show themselves : they run on the 
surface of the waves; the motion of the small—though 
for the bird’s size, mighty—wings is scarcely perceptible, 
so seldom are they moved; it would seem as though they 
merely spread them out so as to preserve their equilibrium: 
thus they glide hither and thither over the waves, always 
at the same height from the surface, rising and falling in 
unison with them. These birds, the Stormy Petrels, are 
the true childreti of the tempest: they are known in 
every sea; every sailor has seen them, and has some 
yarn to tell in connection with them. To this day, even, 
the superstition of olden times has not been entirely lost 
sight of, and ordinary passengers are looked upon with 
angry glances by the crew if they seek to shoot one of these 
little creatures. There is such a charm in their move¬ 
ments, so much poetry, that the hard, rough sailor even 
is struck by it. “ They are the souls of those buried at 
sea,” is his legend: and indeed they look like spirits to 
everyone else, so ghostlike are their movements across 
the surge. 
One might relate something similar about almost every 
water bird there is, and especially of those which inhabit 
the sea. Each one has, more or less, its own singular 
mode or manner, its own special motion. The Penguin, 
banished to the rocky islets of the pole; that ocean rover, 
