es long. The bill is black, and two inches long, and the whole plumage a sooty brown, except the top of the head, which is white. It is a very common bird in the tropical seas, where it is known frequently to fly on board ships, and is taken with the hand. But though it be thus stupid, it bites the fingers severely, so as to make it unsafe to hold it. It is said to breed in the Bahama Islands.

MARSH TERN.

THIS new species I met with on the shores of Cape May, particularly over the salt marshes, and darting down after a kind of large black spider, common in such places. This spider can travel under water as well as above, and during summer, at least, seems to constitute the food of

this Tern.-Wilson.

SHORT TAILED TERN.

On the sixth of September, 1812, after a violent northeast storm which inundated the meadows of Schuylkill in many places, numerous flocks of this Tern all at once made their appearance, flying over the watery spaces, picking up grasshoppers, spiders, beetles, and other insects that were floating on the surface. The people on the sea coast say that this bird comes to them only in the fall, and is frequently seen about mill ponds and fresh water marshes. Wilson.

THE PETRELS.

THE whole genus of Petrels are known by having, instead of a back toe, only a sharp spur or nail; they have also a

sea usually indicates the vicinity of land. It is widely dispersed over the various shores of the ocean. I observed them on the coast of Florida and Georgia, where they were very numerous and noisy. They frequently settle on the rigging of ships at sea, and are called by the sai lors, the Noddy.-Wilson.

faculty of spouting from their bills, to a considerable distance, a large quantity of pure oil, which they do, by way of defence, into the face of any person who attempts to take them.

Is the largest of the kind which is known in Europe. It is superior to the size of the common gull, being about fifteen inches in length, and in weight seventeen ounces. The bill is very strong, yellow, and hooked at the end. The head, neck, and all the under parts of the body, are white; the back and wings ash-coloured, the quills dusky, and the tail white. It feeds on the blubber of whales which supplies the reservoir, whence it spouts, with a constant stock of ammunition. This oil is esteemed by the inhabitants of the North as a sovereign remedy in many complaints both external and internal. The flesh is also considered by them as a delicacy, and the bird is therefore in great request at St. Kilda. When a whale is taken, these birds will, in defiance of all endeavours, light upon it, and pick out large lumps of fat, even while it is alive.

The SHEARWATER, or MANKS PUFFIN, as it is called by Willoughby, is something smaller than the preceding.

The head and all the upper part of the body are of a sooty blackness; and the under part and inner coverts of the wings white. These birds are found in the Isle of Man and the Scilly Isles. In February they take a short possession of the rabbit burrows, and then disappear till April; they lay one egg, and in a short time the young are fit to be taken. They are then salted and barrelled. During the day they keep at sea fishing, and towards evening return to their young, whom they feed by discharging the contents of the stomach into their mouths.

Is about the size of a house swallow. The general colour of the plumage is black, except about the rump, which is white. Stormy Petrels have been seen in flocks which have been estimated to contain at least a hundred and fifty millions of them. They are always to be found on the shores of Britain, and seem to be diffused all over the world. They sometimes hover over the water like swallows, and sometimes appear to run on the top of it: they are also excellent divers. It skims along the hollows of

* Wilson supposed the American Stormy Petrel to be the same as that of Europe, but Charles Bonaparte has shown that it is a distinct species. It breeds in great numbers on the shores of the Bahama and Bermuda Isles, and on the Coast of East Florida and Cuba. This author enumerates four species of the Stormy Petrel.

the waves, and through the spray upon their tops, at the astonishing rate of sixty miles in an hour. They are very clamorous, and are called by the sailors Mother Cary's Chickens, who observe they never settle or sit upon the water but when stormy weather is to be expected. They are found in most parts of the world; and in the Feroe islands the inhabitants draw a wick through the body of the bird, from the mouth to the rump, which serves them as a candle, being fed by the vast proportion of oil which this little animal contains. This oil it is supposed to collect from the ocean by means of the feathers on its breast.

There are about twenty species of foreign birds of this kind. In the high southern latitudes one is found which is the size of a goose, and on that account called the GIANT PETREL. The upper parts of its plumage are pale brown, mottled with dusky white; the under parts are white. There is another species in Norfolk Island, which burrows in the sand like a rabbit.

AND all its varieties, is well known to most readers. It is seen with slow-sailing flight hovering over rivers, to prey upon the smaller kinds of fish: it is seen following the

ploughman in fallow fields to pick up insects; and when living animal food is not to be found, it has even been known to eat carrion, and whatever else offers of the kind.

Of the Gull there are about nineteen species. The largest with which we are acquainted is the BLACK AND WHITE OF BLACK-BACKED GULL. It generally weighs upwards of four pounds, and is twenty-five or twenty-six inches from the point of the bill to the end of the tail; and from the tip of each wing, when extended, five feet and several inches. The bill appears compressed sideways, being more than three inches long, and hooked towards the end, like the rest of this kind, of a sort of orange colour; the nostrils are of an oblong form; the mouth is wide, with a long tongue and very open gullet. The irides of the eyes are of a delightful red. The wings and the middle of the back are black; only the tips of the covert and quill feathers are white. The head, breast, tail, and other parts of the body, are likewise white. The tail is near six inches long, the legs and feet are flesh-coloured, and the claws black. There are about twenty varieties of this tribe, which are all distinguished by an angular knob on the chap.

Gulls are found in great plenty in every place; but it is chiefly round the rockiest shores that they are seen in the greatest abundance: it is there that the Gull breeds and brings up its young; it is there that millions of them are heard screaming with discordant notes for months together.

The SKUA GULL is the size of a raven. The upper parts of the head, neck, back, and wings, are deep brown; the under parts a pale rusty ash colour. The legs are black, rough, and warty, and the talons very strong and hooked. It is mostly a native of the North, though often found in England. It is a most formidable bird, as it not only preys upon fish, but upon all the smaller waterfowl, and even on young lambs. It has the fierceness of the eagle in defend