DCHP-3

Mother Carey's chicken†

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Spelling variants:
Mother Cary, Mother Carew

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

a petrel. See 1829 quote.

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

Quotations

1791
[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
When fully out to sea, we fall in with the stormy petrels, better known by the name of Mother Carew's chickens. . . .
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.
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.