THE LIVING WORLD. 
323 
calls the storm into existence. They even fancy that the petrel never goes ashore 
nor rests; and will tell you that it does not lay its egg in the ground, but 
holds it under one wing, and hatches it while engaged in flight. To the vul¬ 
gar mind, everything incomprehensible is fraught with terrors, and so the 
harmless, and even useful petrel , is hated with strange virulence. 
Throughout the breeding season, the petrel is indefatigable in search of 
food, and will follow ships for considerable distances, in hopes of obtaining 
some of the offal that is thrown overboard by the cook. Even if a cupful of 
oil be emptied into the water, the petrel will scoop it up in its bill and take 
it home to its young. During the night it mostly remains with its offspring, 
feeding it and making a curious grunting noise, something like the croaking 
of frogs. This noise is continued throughout the night, and those who have 
visited the great nesting-places of the petrel , unite in mentioning it as a loud 
and peculiar sound. The ordinary cry is low and short, something like the 
quacking of a young duck. By day, however, the birds are silent, and only 
those who keep nightly watch on the ship’s deck, can have an opportunity of 
hearing their chattering cry. 
The burrow in which the young petrel is hatched is extremely odoriferous, 
the oily food on which the bird lives having itself a very rancid and unsavory 
scent; and in consequence of feeding upon this substance, both the habitation 
and the inmates are extremely offensive to the nostrils. The young bird is at 
first very helpless, and remains in its excavated home until it is several weeks 
of age. One of these birds was seen on the Thames in the month of Decem¬ 
ber, 1823, where it attracted some attention, its peculiar mode of pattering over 
the water causing it to be taken for a wounded land bird, and inducing many 
persons to go in vain pursuit of the supposed cripple. 
While many different genera rear their brood under ground there is a 
greater number of birds that are wood-burrowers, but among these there is 
no similarity in the color of their eggs. Most prominent among the birds 
with which we are best acquainted, that excavate their nests in the hollows of 
trees, are the woodpeckers , common alike to both the old and the new worlds. 
Birds of this family are easily distinguishable by the peculiar form of the 
beak, feet and tail. The powerful sharp-pointed bill enabling them to chip 
away the bark and wood, while the claws and tail are so formed as to support 
the bird firmly while this work is being performed. 
As is pretty generally known, woodpeckers make their nests in a tunnel 
which they drive through the decayed branches of a tree, never attacking the 
solid limbs, upon which they could make but small impression. Oftentimes 
trees which have the appearance of soundness are much decayed beneath the 
bark, and though this defect is not easily discoverable by man, unless such 
vegetable parasites as the lichen have made their appearance over the unsound 
portion, yet a woodpecker is able to tell unerringly just how far the decay 
has progressed. Such places are seized upon by the bird, which drives its 
lance-like bill into the softened wood, and by industrious hammering soon 
excavates a hole of proper dimensions and several inches deep, in which four 
pearly white eggs are deposited without further provision. When incubation 
begins the female is not easily driven from her nest, for I have more than 
once climbed, not without much difficulty and noise, up a tree in which a 
woodpecker had her nest, and succeeded in placing my hand over the hole 
before she would seek flight. 
