322 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

almost daily, answered to its name like any domestic animal,

and ate almost out of the hand. One year, however, very

near the period of its final disappearance, Willie did not pay
his respects to the family for eight or ten days after the
general flock of gulls were upon the coast, and great was
their lamentation for his loss, as it was feared he was dead:
but to the surprise and joy of the family, a servant one
morning came running into the breakfast-room with delight,
announcing that Willie was retuned. The whole company
rose from the table to welcome the bird. Food was supplied
in abundance, and Willie with his usual frankness ate of it
heartily, and was as tame as any barn-yard fowl about the
house. In a year or two afterwards this grateful bird disap-
peared for ever.

Mother The Stormy Petrel or Mother Carey’s Chicken,

Carey’s is a small black bird well known to mariners, and

Chicken. familiar to all at sea in stormy weather. It
follows in the wake of ships and is regarded as a prophet of
evil, at least in so far as stormy weather is concerned. It
is seen in many parts of the ocean busily engaged in searching
for food, braving the fury of the storm and skimming along
the waves, sometimes above their tops, and sometimes screen-
ing itself from the blast by sinking down into the billows
between them. It nests in all but inaccessible places, the

Island of St. Kilda being the chief British breeding place of

the Fulmar variety. These are of great importance to the

natives who run great risks in searching for their eggs and
who catch the birds for the purposes of food, and for the
oil which they supply.

Catching the The danger attaching to the capture of the
Stormy Petrel in its rocky haunts in the Hebrides is thus
Fotrel vividly described by Mr. Drosier. “ As the stormy

petrel, is scarcely ever to be seen near the land, except in

very boisterous weather, one of the natives for a trifling
remuneration, agreed to traverse the face of a rock, and take