"Petrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... 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 ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... my boat is moored for thee By ocean's weedy floor— The petrel does not skim the sea More swiftly than my oar. We'll go where, on the rocky isles, Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... such thing. The storm is their element; and the little petrel enjoys the heaviest gale, because, living on the smaller sea-insects, he is sure to find his food in the spray of a heavy wave—and you may see him flitting above the edge of the highest surge. I believe that the reason of this migration ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... Huguenots, by 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 to the right, and then come home by keeping your bow pointed for the spire of the big church!' ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... watch the mightiest till the shoal they reach, Then break and hurry to their utmost stretch; Curl'd as they come, they strike with furious force, And then re-flowing, take their grating course, Raking the rounded flints, which ages past Roll'd by their rage, and shall to ages last. Far off the Petrel in the troubled way Swims with her brood, or flutters in the spray; She rises often, often drops again, And sports at ease on the tempestuous main. High o'er the restless deep, above the reach Of gunner's hope, vast flights of Wild-ducks stretch; Far as the eye can glance on either side, In a ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... impending success or disaster; and an 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... well with Captain George Jernam, and in the whole of the trading navy there were few richer men than the owner of the 'Pizarro', 'Stormy Petrel', ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Savannah was the first privateer which got to sea, but this vessel was captured after having taken only a single prize. The Petrel, also from Charleston, bore down upon the United States frigate St. Lawrence, which the captain mistook for a merchant ship; his vessel was sunk by the first broadside of his formidable antagonist. The Sumter, under Captain Semmes, captured ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co. |
