STORMY PETRELS

Evening Star, Issue 18852, 29 January 1925, Page 1

STORMY PETRELS

NO BIGGER THAN A SPARROW. AVintcr Dorms bring In those who dwell inland ninny si ranee birds, and among them that most interesting little sprite, the stormy petrel, or ‘‘ Mother Carey’s ehicken,” writes W. P. Pycrofl in the ‘Daily ( hroiiiele.’ No lugger than a sparrow, it i.s small wonder that the frail bodies are always in danger of being swept, np Ivy winter galea like dead leaves, and east far away from their birthplace. Hut (lie sea is their home,. They know no more of the land than the few yards from the water’s edge, which will provide, them with some, convenient burrow, that shall furnish a. chamber big enough to contain the single while egg, which the. couple may brood in Mini, till they have warmed it into life. The. youngster, a shapeless mass of grey down, i-. fed oii’v by night, and mainlv, it would setup, on a diet of oil. In tlie space of a few .short weeks it will leave with its parents lor the open sea, there to spend the winter afloat, he the weather what it. may. tSailormon have, no good word for Mother Carey’s chicken. They say its presence presages a storm. And sailors do not like .storms —who does if he must submit to their luilfclings, instead of drawing close, to the fireside with the curtains drawn? Since the open sea is their hunting and playground alike, it would seem they could have no hiding-place. Hut the sailors do not find it so. And this because they are. Inst on the great wide sea, as they float at rest. Only when they take wing, and go scurrying along at limes half-running, half-flying, over the waves, are (hoy betrayed hy (he white patch at the base of the tail, which contrasts so conspicuously with the sootyblack of the rest of the plumage. The vonng, they' say, are good to eat; as tender and as well-flavored as ortolans, but bird-lovers like not such slaughter of the innocents, and have no appetite for Mich feasis.