. Birds & nature. Birds; Natural history. WILSON^S PETREL.. ETREivS are dispersed throughout all the seas and oceans of the world. Wilson's Stormy Petrel is one of the best known and commonest. It is to be met with nearly everywhere over the entire watery surface of the globe—far north in the icy regions of the Arctic seas and south to the sunny isles of south- ern oceans. It breeds in the months of March, April, May, June, July and August, according to the locality, in the northern latitudes of Europe, east- ern and western North America. Dr. J. H. Kidder found it on Kergulen Island, sout
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. Birds & nature. Birds; Natural history. WILSON^S PETREL.. ETREivS are dispersed throughout all the seas and oceans of the world. Wilson's Stormy Petrel is one of the best known and commonest. It is to be met with nearly everywhere over the entire watery surface of the globe—far north in the icy regions of the Arctic seas and south to the sunny isles of south- ern oceans. It breeds in the months of March, April, May, June, July and August, according to the locality, in the northern latitudes of Europe, east- ern and western North America. Dr. J. H. Kidder found it on Kergulen Island, southeast of Africa. He had previously seen the birds at the sea coast off the Cape of Good Hope, and, on December 14, saw them out by day feeding on the oily matter floating away from the carcass of a sea-elephant. The birds, he says, frequent the rocky parts of hillsides, and flitting about like swallows, catch very minute insects. " Mother Carey's Chicken, " as it is called by sailors, is widely believed to be the harbinger of bad weather, and many superstitions have grown out of the habit which they possess of appar- ently walking on the surface of the water as the Apostle St. Peter is recorded to have done. It is the smallest of the web-footed birds, yet few storms are violent enough to keep it from wandering over the waves in search of the food that the disturbed water casts to the surface. The Stormy Petrel is so exceedingly oily in texture, that the inhabitants of the Ferol islands draw a wick through its body and use it as a lamp. Wilson gives the following account of its habits while following a ship under sail: " 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 foam- ing surf that threatens to bend over their head; sweeping along through the hollow troughs of the sea, as in a sheltered valley, and again mounting with the rising billow, and just above its surface