The back itself, from the head to the tip of
the tail, and the edge of the wings next to the back, are all over
spotted with fine small, round, white and black spots, as big as a silver
twopence, and as close as they can stick one by another: the belly,
thighs, sides, and inner part of the wings, are of a light grey. These
birds, of all these sorts, fly many together, never high, but almost
sweeping the water. We shot one a while after on the water in a calm, and
a water-spaniel we had with us brought it in: I have given a picture of
it, but it was so damaged that the picture doth not show it to advantage;
and its spots are best seen when the feathers are spread as it flies.
The petrel is a bird not much unlike a swallow, but smaller, and with a
shorter tail. It is all over black, except a white spot on the rump. They
fly sweeping like swallows, and very near the water. They are not so
often seen in fair weather; being foul-weather birds, as our seamen call
them, and presaging a storm when they come about a ship; who for that
reason don't love to see them. In a storm they will hover close under the
ship's stern in the wake of the ship (as it is called) or the smoothness
which the ship's passing has made on the sea; and there as they fly
(gently then) they pat the water alternately with their feet as if they
walked upon it; though still upon the wing.
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