At this moment I stepped into the wheel-house to look at the aneroid, and found the needle actually jumping back and forth from 29.10 to 29.20, with a quick jerk like the second-hand of a clock. This is known as “pumping” when observed in a mercurial barometer, and occurs most frequently during cyclones, the cause being sudden changes in the velocity, and, consequently, force, of the wind. It is interesting to note that if a barometer is hung against a wall where the wind will blow steadily upon it at a rate of about thirty feet per second the height of the barometer is perceptibly increased. Once before we observed this pumping of the barometer, which happened on the P. and O. steamer “Khedive,” in the Bay of Biscay, when the glass stood at 28.64. This is, of course, a very low reading, but it is often eclipsed during tropical cyclones; indeed, not long ago the British steamer “Foreland,” at New York, from Hull, reported the barometer at 28.10 to the eastward of the Banks during a January passage. At five yesterday afternoon the force of the wind was greatest, and the surface of the ocean smoked, and we couldn’t see the jib-boom for the spume, which flew through the air like steam; yet in the very eye of the storm the gay little Cape pigeons darted about like sparrows in a summer shower. They seemed to find a deal to eat on the surface, and their method of feeding was this: At the instant that an unusually heavy sea passed they would swoop down into the hollow where it was almost calm, snatch a few mouthfuls of whatever they found, and as the next huge sea rushed at them, at the very second before they were buried in the hissing crest, they extended their wings to the utmost, the wind struck beneath them, and without any perceptible effort they rose against the gale, only to drop again in a few moments, and repeat the operation. It was really very pretty manœuvering, and compelled admiration at the ease and certainty with which the little creatures handled themselves even in the heaviest gusts.