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yards at a time. Meanwhile they continue coursing from side to side of the ship's wake, making excursions far and wide to the right and to the left, now a great way ahead, and now shooting astern for several hundred yards, returning again to the ship as if she were all the while stationary, though perhaps running at the rate of ten knots an hour. But the most singular peculiarity of this bird is its faculty of standing, and even running on the surface of the water, which it performs with apparent facility. When any greasy matter is thrown overboard, these birds instantly collect around it, facing to windward, with their long wings expanded and their webbed feet patting the water. The lightness of their bodies, and the action of the wind on their wings, enable them with ease to assume this position. In calm weather they perform the same manœuvre by keeping their wings just so much in action as to prevent their feet from sinking below the surface."

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The Stormy Petrel (Thalassidroma pelagica, VIGORS.) Length, about six inches.

"There are," says the same writer in another place, "few persons who have crossed the Atlantic, that have not observed these solitary wanderers of the deep skimming along the surface of the wild and wasteful ocean; flitting past the vessel like swallows, or following in her wake, gleaning their scanty pittance of food from the rough and whirling surges. Habited in mourning, and

making their appearance generally in greater numbers previous to or during a storm, they have long been fearfully regarded by the ignorant and superstitious, not only as the foreboding messengers of tempests and dangers to the hapless mariner, but as wicked agents, connected some how or other in creating them. 'Nobody,' say they, can tell anything of where they come from, or how they breed, though (as sailors sometimes say) it is supposed that they hatch their eggs under their wings as they sit on the water.' This mysterious uncertainty of their origin, and the circumstances above recited, have doubtless given rise to the opinion, so prevalent among this class of men, that they are in some way or other connected with the prince of the power of the air. In every country where they are known, their names have borne some affinity to this belief. They have been called witches, stormy petrels, the Devil's birds, and Mother Cary's chickens, probably from some celebrated ideal hag of that name; and their unexpected and numerous appearance has frequently thrown a momentary damp over the mind of the hardiest seamen. It is the business of the naturalist, and the glory of philosophy, to examine into the reality of these things; to dissipate the clouds of error and superstition wherever they darken and bewilder the human understanding, and to illustrate nature with the radiance of truth."

When we inquire, accordingly, into the unvarnished history of this ominous bird, we find that it is by no means peculiar in presaging storms, for many others of very different families are evidently endowed with an equally nice perception of a change in the atmosphere. Hence it is that, before rain, swallows are seen more eagerly hawking for flies, and ducks carefully trimming their feathers, and tossing up water over their backs, to try whether it will run off again without wetting them. But it would be as absurd to accuse the swallows and ducks on that account of being the cause of rain, as to impute a tempest to the spiteful malice of the poor petrels. Seamen ought rather to be thankful to them for the warning which their delicate feelings of aerial change enable them to give of an approaching hurricane.

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As well," says Wilson, "might they curse the midnight light-house, that, star like, guides them on their watery way; or the buoy that warns them of the sunken rocks below, as this harınless wanderer, whose manner informs them of the approach of the storm, and thereby enables them to prepare for it." The petrels are nocturnal birds. When, therefore, they are seen flying about and feeding by day, the fact appears to indicate that they have been driven from their usual quarters by a storm; and hence, perhaps, arose the association of the bird with the tempest. Though the petrels venture to wing their way over the wide ocean as fearlessly as our swallows do over a mill-pond, they are not, therefore, the less sensible to danger; and, as if feelingly aware of their own weakness, they make all haste to the nearest shelter. When they cannot then find an island or a rock to shield them from the blast, they fly towards the first ship they can descry, crowd into her wake, and even close under the stern, heedless, it would appear, of the rushing surge, so that they can keep the vessel between them and the unbroken sweep of the wind. It is not to be wondered at, in such cases, that their low wailing note of weet, weet, should add something supernatural to the roar of the waves and whistling of the wind, and infuse an ominous dread into minds prone to superstition.

The popular opinion among sailors, that the petrels carry their eggs under their wings in order to hatch them, is no less unfounded, than the fancy of their causing storms: it is, indeed, physically impossible. On the contrary, the petrels have been ascertained to breed on rocky shores, in numerous communities, like the bank-swallow, making their nests in the holes and cavities of the rocks above the sea, returning to feed their young only during the night, with the superabundant oily food from their stomachs. The quantity of this oily matter is so considerable, that, in the Faro Isles, they use petrels for candles, with no other preparation than drawing a wick through the body of the birds from the mouth to the rump. While nestling, they make a cluttering or croaking noise, similar to frogs, which may be heard during

the whole night on the shores of the Bahama and Bermuda Islands, and the coasts of Cuba and Florida, where they abound. Forster says they bury themselves by thousands in holes under ground, where they rear their young and lodge at night; and at New Zealand, the shores resound with the noise, similar to the clucking of hens, or the croaking of frogs, (Pontoppidan, speaking of those of Norway, says like the neighing of a horse,) which they send forth from their concealment.

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*

This bird is considered by Mr. Audubon as a new species, seldom or never seen, except in the Western states. It is probably, however, the great sea eagle described by Wilson, and well known by naturalists in Europe and America. The male bird weighs from fourteen to fifteen pounds, and measures three feet seven inches in length, and ten feet two inches in extent.

* See page 12 of the present volume.

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The eagle, among birds, sustains the same rank as does the lion among beasts. Its great strength, rapidity, and elevation of flight, added to its natural ferocity, and voracious disposition, have obtained for it the character of "king of birds," and confer upon it the power of inspiring terror into all its fellows of the air. By the Hebrews the eagle was called, VASHAR, the lacerater; and as this species of bird is eminent for rapacity, and tearing their prey in pieces, the propriety of the designation is sufficiently obvious.

Josephus and Pliny thought the ensign of the eagle peculiar to the Romans; in this however they were wrong, for the golden eagle with extended wings was borne by the Persian monarchs, from whom, it is probable, the Romans adopted it, as it was subsequently adopted from them by the United States and Napoleon; while the Persians themselves may have borrowed the symbol from the ancient Assyrians, in whose banners it moved till Babylon was conquered by Cyrus. This may serve to

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