many inland localities on the Continent. It visits Madeira,
the Canaries, and the west coast of Africa down to Walviscli
Bay ; and the late Captain Sperling states that he met with
it on the east side between the latitudes of Zambesi and
Zanzibar. Crossing the Atlantic, we find that Mr. H. C.
Hart, of H.M.S. ‘Discovery,’ observed two Storm Petrels
off Godliaab, on the coast of Greenland, in 64 N. lat.
(Zool. 1880, p. 210) ; and it is recorded from the hanks
of Newfoundland. Dr. Coppinger, of H.M.S. ‘Alert,’ states
that twelve or fourteen Storm Petrels followed the ship,
feeding greedily on offal, until the 5th of Novembei,
when in the neighbourhood of St. Paul’s Rocks, near the
equator. He noticed the neat and graceful way in which
they planted their webbed feet on the water, and avoided
wetting their tarsi, maintaining a stationary attitude with
outstretched wings and legs straightened, while pecking
at the object of their fancy. When performing a curve,
they kicked the water with the outer foot. He frequently
observed them floating on the surface wTitli closed wings,
in fact, they were only on the move when feeding ; and,
far from only following the ship in stormy weather, they
were, in the tropics at least, more abundant during calms.
They also followed the ship at night, which he found to be
the best time for catching them, by means of sixty yards oi
light line armed with a small anchor-shaped piece of bottle-
wire. The stomachs of those he examined contained a
number of stony particles, bits of cinder, minute shells, and
otolites of fish.
These birds rove over the greater part of the Atlantic
and Mediterranean, feeding on the small fishes, Crustacea,
and mollusca to be found about the extensive masses of seaweed
which float upon the surface of the ocean. They are
erroneously supposed to be seen only before stormy weather,
and therefore are not welcome visitors to sailors, who call
them the Devil’s birds, witches, and Mother Carey s chickens
—the last being alluded to by Captain Carteret in ‘ Hawks-
worth’s Voyages,’ i. p. 318 (1773), as a well-known sailor’s
name. Their habit of paddling along the surface is said
by Buffon (Hist. nat. xxiv. p. 299), to have obtained for
them from English sailors the name of Petrel, after the
Apostle Peter, who attempted to walk on the water: the
derivation being given as “ pierre, pierrot, ou petit-pierre ” !
Some interesting accounts of the habits of this species in
captivity are to be found in ‘ The Naturalist,’ iii. p. 214,
and ‘ The Zoologist,’ 1881, p. 489, from which it appears
that the hooked hill and wings are freely used as means of
progression. Mr. Scarth, when in Orkney, caught one on
her nest in a small hole, and preserved her alive for three
months in a cage, feeding her by smearing her breast with
oil, which she sucked from the feathers, drawing each feather
singly between her mandibles (Linn. Trans, xiii. p. 617).
The bill is black; the irides dark brown; head, neck,
back, wings, and tail sooty-black; outer edges of wing-
coverts greyish-white; upper tail-coverts white, tipped with
black; chin, throat, breast, belly, vent, and under tail-coverts
of a sooty-black, rather lighter than the upper parts ; sides
of the vent white ; legs, toes, and membranes black. The
whole length of the bird is not quite six inches ; the wing,
from the bend, four inches and five-eighths. The young-
bird, till twelve months old, is not quite so dark in colour;
edges of wing-coverts rusty-brown ; no w-hite on the maigins
of the wing-coverts, and less white at each side of the vent.
Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., has an albino of this species.
The nestling is covered with a soft, wool-like, greyish-
black down. The Rev. S. H. Saxby, who weighed five of
these Petrels taken from their burrows, found that then-
average weight was nearly half an ounce.