132 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
wondered if they can perchance experience some- 
thing of the feeling of travellers landed at last 
after long tossing on the sea, when though on 
solid ground they still in fancy heave and slide. 
At any rate, for one Petrel that appears to retain 
its wits, running off with wings raised as if in 
pursuit of a definite object, hundreds appear 
dazed, silly, imbecile. 
With birds thus congregated in scores about 
our door—beneath the very floor of our hut,—it 
soon became possible to disentangle particular 
vociterations from the general din, to interpret 
correctly such evil melodies as the supplicatory 
wailings for regurgitated food, the squally court- 
ships punctuated with scrapings and scratchings, 
the caterwaulings of preliminary wooing, the 
tuneless consummation of courtship which hap- 
pens not on the wing, as might have been antici- 
pated, but more prosaically on the ground. 
Except for darkness and the chance of scrub and 
logs, there is no difficulty in watching Petrel. 
They are indifferent to the presence of man, their 
scrapings, singings, and courtships undashed and 
unabashed by his proximity. It was easy, stand- 
ing directly above the birds, to watch, in a pre- 
occupied pair, the abject solicitation of the one, 
the long retention of the coveted food by the 
other. In this interchange of pabulum the pair 
have the appearance of wrestling with their bills, 
