Many birds are arranged in our British ornithology not known as permanent inhabitants, but which have occasionally visited our shores during inclement seasons, or been driven from their general stations by tempestuous weather. An event like this, the violent gale of All-hallows eve, in 1824, brought to us the stormy petrel[49] (procellaria pelagica); a bird that resides far in the depths of the ocean, does not approach our shores, it is believed, except for the purposes of incubation, and we know only one place, the Isle of Sky, that it haunts even for this short period. It is a creature ——“that roams on her sea-wing, Unfatigued, and ever sleeps, Calm, upon the toiling deeps.” It is a pretty good manifestation of the strength and extent of that hurricane, which could catch up a bird with a wing so powerful as to enable it to riot in the whirlwind and enjoy the storm, and bear it away irresistibly, perhaps, from the Atlantic waves, over such a space of land and ocean, and then dash it down on a rather elevated common in this parish, whence it was brought to me in a very perfect state. This little creature, scarcely as big again as a swallow, and the smallest of all our web-footed birds, has, like all the others of its genus, that extraordinary tube on its upper mandible, through which it spirts out an oily matter when irritated; but the real object of this singular provision seems unknown. Our seamen amuse themselves during the monotony of a voyage with the vagaries of “mother Carey’s chickens,” as they have from very early times called this bird. The petrels seem to repose in a common breeze, but upon the approach, or during the continuation, of a gale, they surround a ship, and catch up the small animals which the agitated ocean brings near the surface, or any food that may be dropped from the vessel. Whisking with the celerity of an arrow through the deep valleys of the abyss, and darting away over the foaming crest of some mountain wave, they attend the laboring bark in all her perilous course. When the storm subsides they retire to rest, and are no more seen. The presence of this petrel was thought in times past to predict a storm, and it was consequently looked upon as an unwelcome visitant.