PROCELLARIA, a genus of birds, belonging to the order of anseres. See ORNITHOLOGY Index. Clusius makes the procellaria pelagica or stormy petrel the Camilla of the sea.
Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tument
Ferret iter, celeres nec tingeret a quore plantas. VIRG.
She swept the seas; and, as she skimm'd along
Her flying feet unbath'd on billows hung. DRYDEN.
These birds are the cypsellis of Pliny, which he places among the apodes of Aristotle; not because they wanted feet, but were nauxodes, or had bad or useless ones; an attribute he gives to these species, on a supposition that they were almost always on the wing.