. Natural history of birds : their architecture habits and faculties . ime. Meanwhile they continue coursing fromside to side of the ships wake, making excursionsfar and wide to the right and to the left, now a greatway ahead, and now shooting astern for several hun-dred yards, returning again to the ship as if she wereall the while stationary, though perhaps running atthe rate of ten knots an hour. But the most singu-lar peculiarity of this bird is its faculty of standing,and even running on the surface of the water, whichit performs with apparent facility. When any grea-sy matter is thrown o
. Natural history of birds : their architecture habits and faculties . ime. Meanwhile they continue coursing fromside to side of the ships wake, making excursionsfar and wide to the right and to the left, now a greatway ahead, and now shooting astern for several hun-dred yards, returning again to the ship as if she wereall the while stationary, though perhaps running atthe rate of ten knots an hour. But the most singu-lar peculiarity of this bird is its faculty of standing,and even running on the surface of the water, whichit performs with apparent facility. When any grea-sy matter is thrown overboard, these birds instantlycollect around it, facing to windward, with theirlong wings expanded and their webbed feet pattingthe water. The lightness of their bodies, and theaction of the wind on their wings, enable them withease to assume this position. Incalm weather theyperform the same manoeuvre by keeping their wingsjust so much in action as to prevent their feet fromsinking below the surface.* * American Ornithology, vii., 97- 22 THE ARCHITECTURE OF 7%c Stormy Petrel {Thalassidroma pelagica, Vigors). Lengthyabout six inches. There are, says the same writer in anotherplace, few persons who have crossed the Atlanticthat have not observed these solitary wanderers ofthe deep skimming along the surface of the wildand wasteful ocean; flitting past the vessel likeswallows, or following in her wake, gleaning theirscanty pittance of food from the rough and whirlingsurges. Habited in mourning, and making their ap-pearance generally in greater numbers previous toor during a storm, they have long been fearfully re-garded by the ignorant and superstitious, not only asthe foreboding messengers of tempests and dangersto the hapless mariner, but as wicked agents, con-nected some how or other in creating them. * No-body, say they, can tell anything of where theycome from, or how they breed, though (as sailorssometimes say) it is supposed that they hatch theireggs under their w
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