Our Youths' Department.

NATURAL HISTORY.

PETRELS AND PUFFINS.

THE story of Peter walking upon the water is well known to all our youthful readers. It is from this circumstance that the petrel derives its name; for in flying over the sea, it often pats the water with its feet, so as to seem to be running upon it. Our sailors seeing this, called it Petrel, which signified "Little Peter." These birds may truly be said to be ocean wanderers, as one species or another of the family is to be met with in every sea. The largest, which, from its size, is called the Giant Petrel, is larger than the goose. Its plumage varies, but in general it is black above and white below. It seems to be confined to the southern seas. The smallest species, called the Stormy Petrel, is best known. It is the smallest of all web-footed birds, being about the size of a swallow. It is met with in almost every quarter of the globe, but especially on the Northern Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Its prevailing colour is sooty black, parts of the tail and wings being white.

Very much disliked are these little petrels by the sailors, not for any damage they have ever been seen doing, but because their appearance in considerable numbers generally precedes a storm. And when the clouds gather on the gloomy sky, and the angry sea, roused by the raging winds, tosses the vessel on its billows, those dusky little birds, like spirits of the tempest, are seen following the foaming wake of the ship, rising to the summits of the waves and descending into the hollows of the surges, and fluttering their wings, as if they revelled in the tempest. The superstitious among the sailors have thought that they had something to do with bringing the storm. Added to this, they have an idea that no one knows anything about where they come from, and that, instead of going to land like other birds in the breeding season, to lay and hatch their eggs, they carry them under their wings, and hatch them as they stand upon the water. Some, therefore, foolishly thought they must have connection with Satan, and named them Devil's Birds; others called them Mother Carey's Chickens. Who she was, we don't know; perhaps some ideal witch that dwelt far away in some ocean cave, who, having evil designs on the sailors,

sent forth her birds to raise the storm. But how foolish are these superstitions! Instead of hating them for coming before the storm, the sailors ought to be thankful for the timely warning thus given. The birds are evidently endowed so as to perceive by the state of the atmosphere that a hurricane is near. Nor is this anything rare among the feathered tribes. Before a shower swallows are seen more eagerly following after the flies, and ducks are seen trimming their feathers, as if to smoothe them down for the rain to run off. But no more does the swallow or the duck bring the rain, than the petrel brings the storm. "As well," says Wilson the ornithologist, "might the sailors curse the midnight lighthouse that, star-like, guides them on their watery way; or the buoy that warns them of the sunken rocks below, as this harmless wanderer, whose manner informs them of the approach of the storm, and thereby enables them to prepare for it." The same writer, from personal observation, gives such a vivid description of them, that we cannot resist the temptation of transcribing it. Says he, "In the month of July, on a voyage from New Orleans to New York, on entering the Gulf Stream, and passing along the coasts of Florida and the Carolinas, these birds make their appearance in great numbers, and in all weathers, contributing much, by their sprightly evolutions of wing, to enliven the scene, and affording me every day several hours of amusement. It is, indeed, an interesting sight to observe these little birds in a gale, coursing over the waves-down the declivities, up the ascents of the foaming surf that threatens to burst over their heads, sweeping along the hollow troughs of the sea, as in a sheltered valley, and again mounting with the rising billow, and, just above its surface, occasionally dropping its feet, which, striking the water, throws it up again with additional force, sometimes leaping, with both legs parallel, on the surface of the roughest waves for several yards at a time. Meanwhile it continues 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 substance 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 to do this with ease. 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."

The opinion of the sailors that the petrels hatch their eggs under their wing out at sea, is, of course, mere fancy. They are known to build their nests in the holes and cavities of the rocks by the sea-shore. They abound along the shores of the Bahama and Bermuda Islands and the coasts of Cuba and Florida, where, all night during the breeding season, may be heard their cluttering or croaking noise, similar to that made by frogs. In some places they bury themselves in holes under the ground, where they rear their young and lodge at night; and in some parts of New Zealand the shore, during the night, resounds with the noise which they make.

Their food, to a great extent, consists of oily substances. In the northern latitudes they are constant attendants on the whalers, feasting on the fat of the slaughtered whales with great voracity. One which was caught and kept for some time in a cage was supported by train oil. The feathers of the breast were smeared with the oil, which the bird afterwards sucked with its bill; and when the oil was placed in a saucer, the bird dipped its breast feathers in it, and afterwards sucked them. Owing to the nature of their food, their flesh becomes saturated, as it were, with oil; and when offended or caught, they squirt from their nostrils a quantity of fetid oil, as a defence. The people of the Hebrides are said to make them into candles, by passing a rush through their body and out at the beak, and it burns as well as any other rushlight. The beak of the petrel is very peculiar, being curved at the point, in the form of a strong claw, the whole appearing to be formed of several distinct pieces.

This allusion to the beak brings to our minds another bird of the sea, whose beak is still more peculiar in appearance than that of the petrel; we refer to the Puffin. This peculiarity has obtained for the bird a number of names, such as bottle-nose, coulter-neb, sea-parrot. The bill is as high as the head, broader than long, somewhat triangular in shape, not unlike the coulter of a plough. It is grooved with three curved furrows toward the end. whole beak is, moreover, variegated with different colours, the basal part being a dull yellow, the middle greyish-blue, the remainder, including the tip, bright red. This bird is somewhat

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