Name of various birds that inhabit the places where whales are found, or which feed on their oil or offal: (a) a petrel of the genus Prion or Procellaria; (b) the turnstone, Strepsilas interpres; (c) the red or grey phalarope; (d) the ivory gull.
1768. Phil. Trans., LX. 117. Another bird, not much unlike a quail, which they call here the whale-bird, from its feeding on the offal of those fish.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Whale-bird, a beautiful little bird seen hovering in flocks over the Southern Ocean.
1875. Melliss, St. Helena, 200. The Whale Bird (Procellaria glacialoides).
1879. Bulletin U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 15. 85. Phalaropus fulicarius,… ‘Shatgak,’ Cumberland Eskimo. ‘Whale-bird,’ or ‘Bowhead Bird,’ of whalemen.
