DCHP-1 Online

Mother Carey's chicken † Mother Cary, Mother Carew

• a petrel. See 1829 quote.

  See also: Carey  

  • For another explanation of this term, see the 1956 quote at Carey.

  • 1791  (1911)  [We saw a] number of gulls and shearwaters and Mother Carey ' s chickens flying about. Mother Carey is Matara Cara [Portuguese].
  • 1818  On one of these Islands thousands of Pettrels, or Mother Carey's chickens, annually hatch their young.
  • 1829  Mother Carey was an old witch . . . good at raising the wind . . . The sailors would not shoot [petrels] on any account; they pay them great respect that their mother's wrath may not be roused.
  • 1829  When fully out to sea, we fall in with the stormy petrels, better known by the name of Mother Carew's chickens. . . .
  • 1953  And I know a place on the west side of the Head, a turfy spot above a high bank, where Mother Carey's chickens still make their burrows.