872 
BIRD-LIFE. 
the hand, or seized by birds of prey, without seeking to 
use their wings. 
Stormy Petrels have often been found inland, when 
driven by stress of weather, generally in the neighbour¬ 
hood of large rivers, over which they seem to skim 
hither and thither without definite purpose. One was 
killed in the town of Breslau by a coachman, with 
a blow of his whip; a second was caught under a 
hat, near a pond not far from Frankfort. Others have 
been seen and shot in Hamburg, Pomerania, Hesse, 
Wurtemburg, Baden, and Switzerland. They are some¬ 
times met with on the coast in dozens, aye, even by 
hundreds. 
These, however, are all exceptions, for the Petrel 
never comes to land of its own free will, excepting to 
breed. In the Hebrides and Faroe Islands their nests 
are found in the months of June and July. They use 
holes, scraped out by other sea-fowl, amongst the loose 
soil, formed of earth and stones, near rocks and boulders, 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the sea, and deepen 
them by a foot or so. The Stormy Petrel is, however, 
never seen at the mouth of the hole; probably only 
leaving or entering it during the night, sailing straight 
to and from the sea to its nest. The inhabitants of 
these islands have various modes of discovering the nest. 
One can tell whether a hole be tenanted or not by a 
singular churr or twittering noise uttered by the bird, 
and which is to be heard at night, or they can be detected 
by their powerful smell. Petrels when breeding may also 
be asked if they are at home or not! Graba was conducted 
by a Faroe boy to a loose stone-wall, supposed to contain 
Petrel’s nests: here the boy applied his mouth close to 
every hole and called out loudly the syllable, “kliirr;” 
