"Petrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... convenient as it was, puzzled him. Mrs. Silt, half goose, half stormy-petrel, had recently paid a flying visit to Cadover, and thence had flown, without an invitation, to Sawston. Generally she was not a welcome guest. On this occasion Agnes had welcomed her, and—so Rickie thought—had made her promise not to tell him something that ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... charges against some of the councilors; and the colonists at once ranged themselves into two opposing factions—those who believed the charges and those who did not. The bishop had become the stormy petrel of colonial politics, and nature had in truth well fitted him for just ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... migratorius) is, or rather was, excessively abundant in a certain area in North America, and its enormous migrating flocks darkening the sky for hours have often been described; yet this bird lays only two eggs. The fulmar petrel exists in myriads at St. Kilda and other haunts of the species, yet it lays only one egg. On the other hand the great shrike, the tree-creeper, the nut-hatch, the nut-cracker, the hoopoe, and many other birds, lay from four to six or seven eggs, and yet are never abundant. ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... breeders would require a few more years to people, under favorable conditions, a whole district, let it be ever so large. The condor lays a couple of eggs and the ostrich a score, and yet in the same country the condor may be the more numerous of the two; the Fulmar petrel lays but one egg, yet it is believed to be the most numerous bird in the world. One fly deposits hundreds of eggs, and another, like the hippobosca, a single one; but this difference does not determine how many individuals of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... very little, fact. I think it would be hardly possible to name a bird which apparently could have less to do with distribution than a Petrel. Sir W. Milner, at St. Kilda, cut open some young nestling Petrels, and he found large, curious nuts in their crops; I suspect picked up by parent birds from the Gulf stream. He seems to value these nuts excessively. I have asked him (but I doubt ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... now universally spoken, not having yet degraded into petr'l, a future squire will not be disqualified from airing his wit to his visitors by saying, as he points to his old stables, 'that is where I store my petrel', and when the joke had been illustrated in Punch, its folly would sufficiently distract the patients in a dentist's waiting-room for years to come, in spite of gentlemen and chauffeurs continuing to say petrol, as they do ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... the year there. His departure for New Holland. Cape Salvador. The winds on the Brazilian coast; and Abrolho Shoal; fish and birds: the shearwater bird, and cooking of sharks. Excessive number of birds about a dead whale; of the pintado bird, and the petrel, etc. Of a bird that shows the Cape of Good Hope to be near: of the sea-reckonings, and variations: and a table of all the variations observed in this voyage. Occurrences near the Cape; and the Author's ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... this turbulent agitator, which everyone seemed to hear, and be acquainted with, made the audience hostile to begin with. It was not a demonstrable hostility; but one felt it was there, ready to break out, and overwhelm this stormy petrel of ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... management in that important Department, and discloses the most satisfactory progress in the work of reconstructing the Navy made during the past year. Of the ships in course of construction five, viz, the Charleston, Baltimore, Yorktown, Vesuvius, and the Petrel, have in that time been launched and are rapidly approaching completion; and in addition to the above, the Philadelphia, the San Francisco, the Newark, the Bennington, the Concord, and the Herreshoff torpedo ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... blaze of yellow and purple and red. I cannot describe it to you. If you have seen the sun set in the tropics, you would despise my description; and, if not, I for one could never make you see it. Suffice it that a petrel wheeled somewhere between deepening carmine and paling blue, and it took my thoughts off at an earthy tangent. I thanked God there were no big sea-birds in these latitudes; no molly-hawks, no albatrosses, ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... the first-class luggers, or their smaller sisters, the 'cats,' could be launched. Had there been a harbour from which the Deal luggers could at once make the open sea, they would have been able to live and skim like the stormy petrel over the crest of the billows; but it is quite a different thing when a lugger has to be launched from a beach right in the teeth of a mountainous sea, and incurs the certainty of being driven back broadside on to the steep shingle, and of her crew being washed ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... The stormy petrel is supposed to herald bad weather, and the great auk to tell that land is very near. This is true enough as regards the auk, which never ventures beyond soundings; but one doubts the truth of the popular belief that when ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... allied species (Hylactes Tarnii, King) called the guid-guid or barking bird, whose cry is a close imitation of the yelp of a small dog. The southern coast and its inland waters are frequented by several species of petrel, among which are the Procellaria gigantea, whose strength and rapacity led the Spaniards to call it quebranta huesos (breakbones), the Puffinus cinereus, which inhabits the inland channels in large flocks, and an allied species (Puffinuria Berardii) which inhabits ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... unbelievers, mark you! By fellows who had neither the sense nor the grace to be members of the true church. They could not walk upon the water. Oh! No! But the good Bishop he walked as easily as a stormy petrel, for he was a man of God. And, as he reached the boat he made the sign of the cross, saying, 'Beware of the rocks which you sail down upon! Bear off to the left! When you see the red buoy, bear ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... not much care for the whole thing. Still I was always a bit of a stormy petrel rejoicing in a gale, and my capacity has not waned even in ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... desolate South Seas there lives a large and beautiful bird called the albatross, the giant member of the petrel family. The wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) is the largest of its tribe. Specimens have been captured measuring four feet in length, and with an expanse of wing from ten to fourteen feet. ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sub-families of the gulls are grouped. The contents of the first cases will at once strike him: here are the Petrels, and the associations of shipwreck and disaster with which they have ever been connected. The group includes the stormy petrel, and the albatross. They have an altogether wild and singular appearance. The true gulls of every sea are grouped in the next three cases (157-159): they come from the ice of the polar seas, and from our own shores, including the kittiwake gull, and the European black-backed gull. The last ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... Northern Pacific—Jay Cooke, General Cass, W. B. Ogden, T. A. Scott, and others.[2] {122} M'Mullen soon found that Waddington had exaggerated his influence, and that the government was not yet prepared to discuss terms. Sir Francis Hincks, stormy petrel of railway building, whom Sir John Macdonald had just made his finance minister, suggested to Sir Hugh Allan of Montreal that he should get into touch with these Americans and provide the substantial Canadian ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... oh! I love thee, As the sweet bee loves the flower, As the swallow loves the summer, As the humming bird the bower; As the petrel loves the ocean, As the nightingale the night; I love, I love thee, dearest! Thou being good ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... The "Stormy Petrel" was manned by half a dozen jaunty looking sailors, who made a fine display of blue shirts and shiny hats, with stars ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... Chickens. The fish-fags of Paris in the first Great Revolution were so called, because, like the "stormy petrel," whenever they appeared in force in the streets of Paris, they always foreboded a tumult or ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... "the chatterer," but can also mean literally "little Peter," just as Emmot means "little Emma," and Marriot "little Mary." Petrel is of cognate origin, with an allusion to St Peter's walking upon the sea; cf. its German name, Sankt Peters Vogel. Sailors call the petrel Mother Carey's chicken, probably a nautical corruption of some old Spanish or Italian name. But, in spite of ingenious guesses, this lady's genealogy remains as obscure as that of Davy Jones or ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... for this expedition the ironclads Chillicothe, Lieutenant-Commander James P. Foster, and De Kalb, Lieutenant-Commander John G. Walker; light-draught steamers Rattler, Marmora, Signal, Romeo, Petrel, and Forest Rose; rams Lioness and Fulton; the whole being under Lieutenant-Commander Watson Smith, of the Rattler. The expedition went through Yazoo Pass, meeting many obstructions and difficulties, despite the work ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... puzzling over it when Archey, that stormy petrel of bad news, came in and very soon took ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... Elizabeth's book, but not for pay. Mary Chase took Una and me to Nahant to see Rebecca Kinsman at her cottage. It was a dear little nest, on the brow of a hill commanding the boundless sea. Una flew around like a petrel; only that her hair floated golden in the sunshine, and the petrel's feathers are gray. You are quite right; I am so happy that I require nothing more. No art nor beauty can excel my daily life, with such a husband and such children, the exponents ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... wide, and billowy deep, Where the whale, the shark, and the sword-fish sleep; And amidst the plashing and feathery foam, Where the stormy-petrel ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... Herrick, "that you were going on the Ridgeways' yachting party this afternoon. Mrs. Ridgeway said she was counting on you. They are going out with the 'Petrel.'" ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... obtain the white bear, the musk-ox, of which seven would be required, since it is a clean beast; seven reindeer, likewise; the white fox, the polar hare, the lemming, and seven of each species of cormorant, gannet, penguin, petrel, and gull, some of which are as large as eagles, as well as mergansers, geese, and ducks, certain species of which are only found in the frigid zone. Noah or his agents must have discovered Greenland and North America thousands of years before Columbus was born: they must have preceded Behring, ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton
... Deputy has been a little out of odour with his own people lately, and is now calling a meeting to tell the world what his 'Creed and Charter' doesn't mean. Still a flight into the country might do no harm even to the stormy petrel of politics, and if any one could prevail ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... temper, Fritz; I am about to propose a serious question myself. How is it that the petrel you are aiming at does not come and perch itself quietly on ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... then composing the navy, were as follows: The "Dolphin," "Boston," "Atlanta," "Chicago," whose keels were laid in 1883; the "Charleston" "Baltimore," "Newark," "Philadelphia," "San Francisco," protected cruisers, whose keels were laid in 1887 and 1888; and the gunboats "Yorktown," "Petrel," "Concord," "Bennington," whose keels were laid in 1887 and 1888. In addition to these, there were under construction the dynamite cruiser "Vesuvius," with a guaranteed speed of twenty knots an hour, and a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... and white gulls, with their keen beaks and strong legs. They are pirates, the gulls, and will eat other birds' eggs if they can get them; they are wild and fierce. Another sea-bird, very different in appearance, is the little stormy petrel. Very small and graceful; he is a thin little bird, with a dark-brown coat, but at heart as wild as the proud gulls. He is never happy except when dancing over the cold grey waves and feeling the dash of the spray. The petrel is at sea ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... nearest of the chain of thirteen islands, which enclosed the spacious lagoon, but of the lagoon itself. The islands were densely covered with coco palms, interspersed here and there with lofty puka trees, the nesting-places of countless thousands of a small species of sooty petrel, whose discordant notes filled the air with their clamour as Rawlings and Barry passed beneath, walking along a disused native path, while the two boats pulled along the shore. The village was ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... a thicket grew, to break the sky-line of the horizon. For a few minutes the rear-guard drew up to collect the straggling baggage-mules, and then away they went with a wild shout, as if they were moved by the same glad feeling of freedom that affects the petrel when it swoops over the ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... miracle-worker, the possessor of mysterious ways into the Unknown, is never far off at such a time. Partly deceived and partly deceiving, he is as sure a sign of the lack of profound religious conviction and of the presence of unsatisfied religious aspirations in men's souls, as the stormy petrel or the floating seaweed is of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... off I saw the small dark shape of a bird skimming low down over the swell. When it came quite close I saw it was a Stormy Petrel. I tried to talk to it, to see if it could give me news. But unluckily I hadn't learned much sea-bird language and I couldn't even attract its attention, much less make ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... Fritz, levelling his rifle at a petrel, "the misfortunes of the one constitute the happiness of ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... like the stormy petrel," the latter remarked bitterly. "There is bad news to-night from the north. We are threatened with militant labour troubles ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the slow breeders would require a few more years to people, under favourable conditions, a whole district, let it be ever so large. The condor lays a couple of eggs and the ostrich a score, and yet in the same country the condor may be the more numerous of the two. The Fulmar petrel lays but one egg, yet it is believed to be the most numerous bird in the world. One fly deposits hundreds of eggs, and another, like the hippobosca, a single one. But this difference does not determine how many ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... monition; alarm &c. 669. handwriting on the wall, mene mene tekel upharsin, red flag, yellow flag; fog-signal, foghorn; siren; monitor, warning voice, Cassandra[obs3], signs of the times, Mother Cary's chickens[obs3], stormy petrel, bird of ill omen, gathering clouds, clouds in the horizon, death watch. watchtower, beacon, signal post; lighthouse &c. (indication of locality) 550. sentinel, sentry,; watch, watchman; watch and ward; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... South Wales; description of The spotted Opossum; Vulpine Opossum; Norfolk Island Flying-Squirrel. Blue Bellied Parrot; Tabuan Parrot; Pennantian Parrot; Pacific Parrakeet; Sacred King's-fisher; Superb Warbler, male; Superb Warbler, female; Caspian Tern; Norfolk Island Petrel; Bronze-winged Pigeon; White-fronted Heron; Wattled Bee-Eater; Psittaceous Hornbill; dimensions of ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... to the madness of idolatry. My prayer was granted. Then let me "lay my hand upon my mouth, and my mouth in the dust." I had rather be the stormy petrel, whose wings dip into ocean's foaming brine, than the swallow nestling under the barn-eaves of the farmer, or in the chimney ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Ho, a son of Hastings, five years old, who might have divided honors with the favorites but for being an arrant rogue. To-day he ran in blinkers, and nodded the least bit in his stride, whereas his stable mate, Petrel, the last of the second choices, went as free as ever ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... surface, with the same movement takes flight. After flying by the rapid movement of its short wings for a space in a straight line, it drops, as if struck dead, and dives again. The form of its beak and nostrils, length of foot, and even the colouring of its plumage, show that this bird is a petrel: on the other hand, its short wings and consequent little power of flight, its form of body and shape of tail, the absence of a hind toe to its foot, its habit of living, and its choice of situation, make it at first doubtful whether ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... The sooty petrel had appropriated a certain grassy part of the island to herself, and retained her position with a degree of obstinacy not easily to be overcome. For although it so happened, that the storehouse for the wrecked cargo was ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the open sea are conveniently divided into the active swimmers (Nekton) and the more passive drifters (Plankton). The swimmers include whales great and small, such birds as the storm petrel, the fish-eating turtles and sea-snakes, such fishes as mackerel and herring, the winged snails or sea-butterflies on which whalebone whales largely feed, some of the active cuttles or squids, various open-sea prawns and their relatives, some worms like the ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... She came into the room without a word or a kiss, and when she did speak, the total absence of any euphuism gave token of repressed excitement yet more than her angry eyes and eager step. Evan had grown accustomed to her moods, and if one moment she was the halcyon, and another the petrel, it no longer disturbed him, seeing that he was a stranger to the influences by which she was affected. The Countess rated him severely for not seeking repose and inviting sympathy. She told him that the Jocelyns had one and all combined in an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... resting on the ice and skimming the water in search of food. As soon as we had entered the ice-zone, most of our old companions, such as the albatross, had deserted, while a new suite of Antarctic birds had taken their place. These included the beautiful snow petrel, the Antarctic petrel, and the small, lissome Wilson petrel—a link with the bird-life of more ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... hospitable region were albatrosses and two beautiful kinds of birds, the small blue petrel and pintada. A great many of these were frequently about the wake of the ship, which induced the people to float a line with hooks baited to endeavour to catch them and their attempts were successful. The method they used was to fasten the bait a foot or two before ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... however, was quite unruffled, and went about for some hours lamenting the loss of the huge antarctic bird. He consoled himself later, however, by shooting a beautiful little snow petrel, which he stuffed and mounted and presented to Ben Stubbs, who was quite mollified by the kind-hearted, if erratic, ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... him many things about the stormy petrel. She told him how the stormy petrel flies far, far away from land. His home is on the sea. He can fly all day long ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... adventure I had read of sea-perils: I was at last to learn the full interpretation of their picturesque horrors. Our little craft, the Petrel, had buffeted the boisterous waves for five long weeks. Fortunately, the bulk of her cargo was edible: we feared neither famine nor thirst. Moreover, in spite of the continuous gale that swept us out of our reckoning, the Petrel was in excellent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... the evening light like some huge monster rising out of the ocean. Looking over the sides the water appeared unusually clear; and I could see, far down, the fish swimming about by the side of the ship. Even Mr Hooker, however, did not succeed in catching any. The stormy petrel now made its appearance; and I and Emily and Grace were delighted soon afterwards to see a magnificent white bird with outstretched wings following the ship. "An albatross! an albatross!" I shouted, for I guessed at once what it was. Mr Hooker said he wished to catch two or three and ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... afterward they were in Oban, watching from the heights the exquisite bay, and the lovely isle of Kerrera, the high mountains of Mull, and Ossian's "Misty Morven." The Petrel, a cutter yacht of forty tons, was lying at anchor. In the morning they were to start for a glimpse of the Atlantic across the purple bogs of the Lews; going by way of Mull and Canna, and swinging round Barra Head, toward ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... "Is he Bax? Oh, I know Bax well by name. He is a friend of Guy, and a celebrated man on this coast. He is sometimes called the Stormy Petrel, because he is always sure to be found on the beach in the wildest gales; sometimes he is called the Life Preserver, on account of the many lives he has saved. Strange," said Amy musingly, "that I should have pictured him to myself so like what he turns out to be. He is ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... wind and that adverse. The wind rising but in no better direction. Played another game with Mr. Seaton, he giving me a Knight, still unsuccessful. Had a slight headache, the atmosphere feeling very damp. Saw one of Mother Carey's chickens or petrel of the ocean; it resembles a swallow and followed us some distance picking up some crumbs of bread thrown to it ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... know; they call you the stormy petrel. You went across the lake with others. They returned but you did not return with them. Where you went I don't know. And I'm not going to ask you, Hervey, for it makes no difference. I understand young ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Edgar,—In face of all probabilities the French fleet is in sight. They will be here soon after it is dark. The city is in a state of mid excitement. The captain of the 'Petrel' has just come in, saying that the French are coming along the coast from the west, and that I must be on board before it is dark. For some reasons I regret that you are not with me, but I believe ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... retired, she meditated within: 'What meaneth this strange proceeding? The affianced of Nika presenting the picture of Saronia to the Temple, and Chios to paint it. There is evil afloat. The stormy petrel skims the waves. I will find from Chios the meaning of this secret work. No good for me can come from the house of Venusta. Be patient, Saronia, and thou shalt learn all. I will contrive to speak with Chios. Out of his heart of love he will tell me all. His eyes looked into mine: ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... as we naturalists call it, but in English, the stormy petrel; its presence denotes ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is a beautiful bird, and in its colours offers a strong contrast to the stormy petrel, (Thalassidroma), the chief part of whose plumage is of a sooty black, and others dark brown. Instead of being dreaded by seamen, it ought to be looked upon as their friend, for it seems to know long before they do when a storm is approaching, and by ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... dripped down upon them. Another day they had some cricket, using for a ball a bit of kelp. Under the boats they played draughts; an upturned box serving for table and board, kelp for the black pieces, and sliced potatoes for the white. They were able to get a few petrel's eggs, but digging these out of the nest-holes was wet and ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... further description, and an engraving of this bird, see the Norfolk-Island Petrel, in Phillip's Voyage, ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... doubtless something astir,' said the waiter, who, in the intervals of a casual attendance on Sir John, spoke of these things, cigarette in mouth. 'There is doubtless something astir, since General Vincente is on the road. They call him the Stormy Petrel, for when he appears abroad ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... Stormy Petrel, was an aviator who had alighted somewhere about the village with some sort of ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... is ordinarily applied to the Antarctic Petrel, AEstrelata lessoni. In Australasia it is applied to the Puffin or Short-tailed Petrel, Puffinus brevicaudus, Brandt. The collection of the eggs of this Petrel, the preparation of oil from it, the salting of its flesh for food, form the principal means of subsistence ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... you about?" she enquired, "you stormy petrel! This is no place for your deep-laid machinations. We are here to enjoy ourselves and found a hospital. Come in, however. I am delighted to see you. You used to be a famous dancer—well, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... to be present while I demonstrated this small matter to you," said Holmes, "for it is natural that he should take a keen interest in the details. I am afraid, my dear Colonel, that you must regret the hour that you took in such a stormy petrel as I am." ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... these days Of clerkly and sluggish calm— To the petrel the swooping gale! Austere he seemed, but the hearts Of all men beat in his breast; No fetter but galled his wrist, No wrong that was not his own. What if those eloquent lips Curled with the old-time scorn? What if in needless ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... depressed, creeping form, strongly indicative of the strength and generality of the winds from those quarters. Many of the sandy parts are covered with the hassocks of wiry grass, which constitute the favourite retreat of the sooty petrel; and at the back of the shores, there is frequently some extent of ground where the creeping, salt plants grow, and to which the penguins principally resort. To this general account of the scanty ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... the company of some ducks. At Scarborough, Louth, and Shoreham, it has also been captured or shot, and has been 'found' building nests in Sutherland: and, on the whole, it seems that here is a sort of petrel-partridge, and duckling-dove, and diving-lark, with every possible grace and faculty that bird can have, in body and soul; ready, at least in summer, to swim on our village ponds, or, wait at our railway stations, and make the wild north-eastern coasts ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... close of the day was in Connor's Cove, a miniature harbor not unlike Borja Bay in the Strait. It was a tranquil retreat. The water-birds seemed to find it so, for the steamer ducks were trailing their long wakes through the water, and a large kind of stormy petrel sailed up to the vessel, and almost put himself into the hands of the sailors, with whom he ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... thou art kind! O thou whom, when the great petrel raised a storm, wast cast into the depths by those thou didst love, thou whose heart achest for affection—hear me, hear me, and Annadoah will surely come to thee very soon and comb thy hair in the depths of ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... o'clock next morning Paul again was seen sailing along toward the sloop, his little bark skimming over the river like a petrel on the ocean's breast. He appeared anxious and excited as he approached the side of the vessel. He had but a few pieces of wood in his canoe. Margaret at first sight noticed a change in his features; he looked worn and weary. His bright black eye had lost much of its fire, and as he stepped on ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... bird, under the form of a woodpecker, should prey on insects on the ground; that upland geese which rarely or never swim, would possess webbed feet; that a thrush-like bird should dive and feed on sub-aquatic insects; and that a petrel should have the habits and structure fitting it for the life of an auk! and so in endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying to increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt the slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... cries. The albatrosses, of the black or sooty variety, had watched with hard, bright eyes, and seemed to have a quite impersonal interest in our struggle to keep afloat amid the battering seas. In addition to the Cape pigeons an occasional stormy petrel flashed overhead. Then there was a small bird, unknown to me, that appeared always to be in a fussy, bustling state, quite out of keeping with the surroundings. It irritated me. It had practically no tail, and it flitted about vaguely as though in search of the lost member. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... darkened the sooner by the mist, when Herbert, standing at the window, now rather weary, saw the little girl dart past like a petrel. He snatched up his cap and rushed from the house, buttoning his jacket to defend him from the weather. The little fellow, though so quiet among other boys, was a lover of the storm as much as the girl was, and would ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... contraindication, lesson, dehortation^; admonition, monition; alarm &c 669. handwriting on the wall, mene mene tekel upharsin, red flag, yellow flag; fog-signal, foghorn; siren; monitor, warning voice, Cassandra^, signs of the times, Mother Cary's chickens^, stormy petrel, bird of ill omen, gathering clouds, clouds in the horizon, death watch. watchtower, beacon, signal post; lighthouse &c (indication of locality) 550. sentinel, sentry,, watch, watchman; watch and ward; watchdog, bandog^, housedog^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Colour of Eggs.—The full complement of eggs laid by a bird is known as a set or clutch. The number varies greatly with different species. The Leach's Petrel, Murre, and some other sea birds, have but one egg. The Turkey Vulture, Mourning Dove, Hummingbird, Whip-poor-will, and Nighthawk lay two. Various Thrushes, such as the {24} Robin, Veery, and Wood Thrush, deposit from three to five, four being the most usual number. Wild ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... not," he consented; but Boyne Kenton, who had been an involuntary witness of the fact from a point on the forward promenade, where he had stationed himself to study the habits of the stormy petrel at a moment so favorable to the acquaintance of the petrel (having left a seasick bed for the purpose), was of another mind. He had been alarmed, and, as it appeared in the private interview which he demanded of his mother, he had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... who looked up with the same gay indifference he had manifested when we floundered half-fed, knee-deep in slush of snow. "I'll save you unpleasant explanations," he said. "I'm a stormy petrel, and the monotonous life of a farmer would pall on me, so I'll see you through the railroad contract, and then—well, I'll thank you for a space of pleasant comradeship, and go on my way again. The ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... some change of course, he called the Captain. The moment the latter put his foot upon deck, he found his previous predictions were about to be verified. The rustling noise of the gulf, mingling its solemn sounds with the petrel-like music of that foreboding wind that "whistles through the shrouds," awakened the more superstitious sensations of a sailor's heart. The clouds had gathered their sombre folds into potent conclaves, while the sparkling brine in her wake, seemed like ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... on the horizon; and where she existed was fair chance of trouble. At Simla her bye-name was the "Stormy Petrel." She had won that title five times to my own certain knowledge. She was a little, brown, thin, almost skinny, woman, with big, rolling, violet-blue eyes, and the sweetest manners in the world. You had only to mention her name at afternoon teas for every woman in the room to rise up, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... orders. Your own things will do well enough until we get the riggers out of the ship and the painting done. Till then Mr. Timmins will be the only officer on board; the others will not join till she begins to take in her cargo. The second and third mates of the Petrel will sail with me again, and so will all the men who were rescued. Naturally they like a run ashore as long as they can; and there is nothing for them to do till the ship is out ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... the "Stormy Petrel," was just in his element in such a scene. In the gladness and joy of his heart he rejoiced and shouted, "Glory—glory be to God!" in a way which no one ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... know," he answered. "I'm like the school-boy: 'I don't know nothink.' I suppose I shall stay as long as the governor does; and, come to that, I suppose he doesn't know how long that will be. I've got to regard him as a kind of stormy petrel; here to-day and gone to-morrow, always on the wing, and never resting anywhere for any time. I'm never surprised when I hear that, though his last letter was dated Africa, he has flown back to Europe or has run over ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice |
