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GENUS 95. PROCELLARIA. PETREL.
SPECIES.     P. PELdGICS.-
STORMY PETREL.
[Plate LX.-Fig. 6.]
/ret. Zool. .J-o. 464.-Le Petrel; ou ('Oiseau temtpete, JP1.EnI. 993.
-BEwVICIK, II, 2q23 -PEALE'S Museum, 3034.
THERE are few persons who have crossed the Atlantic, or
traversed much of the ocean, who have not observed these soli-
tary 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 mes-
sengers 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 any thing 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 that personage who
has been styled the prince of the Power of the Air. In every
country where they are known, their names have borne some
" Procellaria Wilsoii, BON'APARTE, Jotanal .cad. .Nat. Sc. Ph. volt
il, p. 231
-it is not the P. pelagica; of course the synorwines quoted by our author
do not belong to this bird,