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 tumenti Ferret iter, celere nec tingeret aequore plantas. Virg.
She swept the seas; and, as she skimmed along, Her flying feet unbar'd on billows hung. Dryden.
These birds are the cypseli of Pliny, which he places among the apodes of Aristotle; not because they wanted feet, but were maxima, or had bad or useless ones; an attribute he gives to these species, on a supposition that they were almost always on the wing.