Page:Cassell's book of birds (IA cassellsbookofbi04breh).pdf/240

 stomachs of individuals captured by Tschudi during a continuance of bad weather, he found a most miscellaneous collection both of eatable and uneatable substances—beans, peas, and lentils, mutton bones, oakum, leather, slices of cabbage, leaves and ship-biscuits, pieces of wood, and, in short, everything that had accidentally fallen from the ship, or been intentionally thrown overboard. In fine weather the Cape Petrels appear to be shy and distrustful; but during a storm, driven apparently by hunger, they become positively reckless, and are very easily captured. The way in which, under these circumstances, they are caught by sailors is simple enough; a bent pin is tied to the end of a strong string, to serve as a hook and line, a piece of bread or bacon is used for bait, and no sooner is this thrown overboard than it is seized upon by a bird, which, by a well-timed jerk of the string, becomes hooked through the upper jaw, and is at once pulled on board. In very stormy weather it naturally happens that so light a bait never reaches the water, but is suspended fluttering in the wind; yet even under these circumstances they will fly at it with the utmost avidity, and if not caught by the hook, generally become so entangled by the string that they are unable to escape. When drawn into the ship they defend themselves valiantly with their beak, and moreover have an ugly trick of squirting from their mouth right into the face of their enemy a loathsome, stinking, oily fluid, which certainly to some extent avenges them for the treatment they experience. When killed, they are skinned by the sailors, and their skins made into weathercocks, the only use to which they seem to be applicable.

(Procellaria or Daption Capensis).

"This Martin among the Petrels," says Gould, "swims lightly; but it rarely exercises natatorial power except to procure food, in pursuit of which it occasionally dives for a moment or two. Nothing can be more graceful than its motions when on the wing, with the neck shortened and the legs entirely hidden among the feathers of the under tail-covers. Like the other Petrels it ejects when irritated an oily fluid from the mouth. Its feeble note of 'Cac, cac, cac, cac,' is frequently uttered;