Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1909 — MOTHER CAREY’B CHICKENS. [ARTICLE]

MOTHER CAREY’B CHICKENS.

Queer Notions About the Stormy Petrel Among Sailors. The stormy petrel, alias Mother Carey’s chicken (Porcellaria pelaglca.) or (Oceanites oceanicus), according as we have reference to the species of the eastern or western Atlantic, has not got the epithet of “stormy” for nothing, says Forest and Stream. As already stated, the bird appears to revel In a tumult of the winds and waves and actually does so for a good and sufficient reason. This is that its food supply Is very much more abundant when the ocean is agitated than when it is at rest. Then, the petrel has a decided habit of following ships, which has really nothing to do with impending storm. No, it seeks the ship, not because it is afraid or lonely, but simply because the ship agitates the waters. Very likely as it follows a storm may spring up and then, seeing the bird so obviously delighted, poor superstitious Jack not unnaturally thought there was some connection between them. From this to a belief in a companionship in evil was only a step. The queer notions about the stormy petrel did not end here. It was believed (and the naivete of this belief is decidedly racy of poor Jack) that it carried its eggs under its wing and hatched them on the water. It was also believed that it could appear at will in the neighborhood of a ship anywhere about the ocean. All this certainly pointed to necromantic or uncanny power, and It is not to be wondered at that the bird became such an object of fear and aversion to the poor man before the mast. The poet Coleridge has left us a fine picture of the terrifying influence of the albatross on the Ancient Mariner, but no poet seems to have awakened to the possibilities of the stormy petrel as a theme. However, we read much about it off and on in old chronicles or tales of the sea. In one of these it is recorded that the sailors, seeing the herald of storm join the ship too near land as they supposed, mutinied and refused to proceed.