ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 57 



several times between the ist and the 8th, it never allowed me to 

 get a shot at it. I have presented the specimen to the Edinburgh 

 Museum of Science and Art. A bird of the same species appeared 

 ten years ago, but I failed to secure it. J. RIPLEY KER, Douglaston. 



Albatross in the Orcadian Seas. The specimen alluded to in 

 the "Zoologist" for September as having been seen near the 

 Orkney Islands (loc. cit. p. 337), I find is referred to in my journals 

 in the following terms: July iSth. By 4 P.M. the log recorded 

 143^ m il es fa- from Great Dimon of the Faeroe group), and at 7.30 

 the captain put our position down at 20 miles from the Orkneys, 

 sighting the Mull Head. At 6.45 P.M., from 200 to 300 yards from 

 the weather bow, and thence to a distance of three miles at least, I 

 watched a big bird. Gannets in several phases of plumage had 

 been seen frequently. This bird was no gannet. The flight petrel- 

 or molly-like, seldom flapping ; swinging and skimming from side 

 to side, not flying straight like a gannet ; head low, and heavy bill, 

 seen to be thick and short a bird in what I would judge to be 

 its second year's plumage. The captain, who stood beside me at 

 the time, said he had seen one to-day (or the same) close to the 

 ship, and that it was no gannet." I can say no more, but morally I 

 felt certain it was an Albatross. It was far larger than a gannet, some 

 of which we saw immediately afterwards. We were in a position 

 N. by W.--J-W. and twenty miles from Orkney on our course. J. A. 

 HARVIE-BROWN. 



The Fulmar Petrel off Dunbar. On 23rd September last 

 (1894), while I was staying at Tynefield, East Lothian, Mr. G. 

 Pow kindly informed me that a Fulmar {Fidmanis gladalis) had 

 been captured alive the previous day by a boating party immedi- 

 ately off Dunbar. I at once secured the bird ; and, being curious 

 to observe its mode of progression on land, turned it out into the 

 garden, where unfortunately it lived but a couple of days. Owing no 

 doubt to its emaciated and enfeebled condition, it made little or no 

 effort to escape, but remained for the most part in a sitting posture 

 on the lawn or in a flower-border, with the whole of the under parts, 

 including the lower portion of the breast, resting on the ground. 

 Every now and then, however, it would get to its feet, flap its 

 wings, and in a very deliberate manner walk for a distance of five 

 or six yards, then sit down again. When walking its appearance 

 was very similar to that of a gull ; but it made no attempt to rest 

 on its legs, as gulls so often do. I mention these facts in view of 

 Mr. G. Gillett's statement (" Notes on the Birds of Novaya Zemblya," 

 "Ibis," 1870, p. 307) that the Fulmar "is easily caught with a 

 baited hook, and when placed on deck is quite unable to rise or 

 even to stand upright, but shuffles along by the help of its wings." 

 Perhaps the birds upon which his observations were made had 



