PETRELS, of which the stormy petrel is a familiar example. These form the genus Thalassidroma of recent ornithological systems,the name (Gr. sea-runner) being given to them in allusion to their apparent running along the surface of the waves, which they do in a remarkable manner, and with great rapidity, particularly when the sea is stormy, and the mollusks and other animals their food are brought in abun dance to the surface—now descending into the very depth of the hollow between two waves, now touching their highest foamy crests, and flitting about with perfect safety aad apparent delight. Hence also their name petrel, a diminutive of Peter, from the apostle Peter's winking on the water. From the frequency with which flocks of these birds are seen in stormy weather, or as heralds of a storm, they are very unfavorably regarded by sailors. They have very long and pointed wings, passing beyond the point of the tail; and the tail is square in some; slightly forked in others. Their flight much resembles that of a swallow. They are to be seen in the seas of all parts of the world,
but are more abundant in the southern than in the northern hemisphere. The names stormy petrel and Carey's chicken are sometimes more particulary appropriated to thuhmlictroma pelagica, a bird scarcely larger than a lark, and the smallest web footed bird known, of a sooty black color, with a little white on the wings and some near the tail. Two or three other species are occasionally found on the British shores; one of which, the fulmar petrel, breeds on the rock of the Scilly Isles, St. Kilda, the Orkneys, Shetland Isles, etc. Like many others of the family, it generally has a quan tity of oil in its stomach, which, when wounded or seized, it discharges by the mouth or nostrils; and of this the people of St. Kilda take advantage, by seizing the birds during incubation, when they sit so closely as to allow themselves to be taken with the hand, and collecting tinfoil in a vessel. •