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THE "BLUE FULMAR : ITS PLUMAGE, ETC. 221 



THE "BLUE FULMAR": ITS PLUMAGE 

 AND DISTRIBUTION. 



By William Eagle Clarke. 



The capture of a fine male example of a Fulmar Petrel in 

 the dark phase of plumage at St Kilda where the bird is 

 not inaptly known as the " Blue Fulmar" by the Duchess 

 of Bedford during the last week of May, enables me, thanks 

 to Her Grace's kind permission, to give a more detailed 

 description of its plumage than has hitherto, I believe, been 

 published. It also affords an opportunity for offering some 

 information on its geographical distribution, which may not 

 be known to some of our readers. It may further, perhaps, 

 be regarded as a corollary to Dr Harvie-Brown's papers on 

 the past and present distribution of the Fulmar, which 

 appeared in our pages and those of the Zoologist during 

 the year 191 2. 



This dark form appears to be extremely rare in our 

 British seas and to be confined as a native bird, so far as is 

 known, to St Kilda, where a few are annually found amid the 

 vast throng of the ordinary Fulmars for which this little 

 archipelago is so famous. It is one of the very few instances 

 of the interesting phenomenon of Dimorphism to be found 

 among British birds. The general colour of the specimen 

 under notice consists of various shades of the neutral gray of 

 Ridgway's " Color Standards," but these are modified to some 

 extent by a silvery or silken sheen which pervades the entire 

 plumage of the upper surface, including the wings and tail. 

 The mantle, scapulars, wing-coverts (except those of the 

 primaries), and flanks are "neutral gray." The head, hind 

 neck, cheeks, secondaries, and tail are paler, being "light 

 neutral gray " ; the under surface paler still, or " pallid neutral 

 gray." The primaries and their coverts, "dark neutral gray." 

 The chin and throat are dull white. As in the adults of the 

 pale or typical form (see Scot. Nat., 191 2, p. 103), some of the 

 feathers of the mantle, scapulars, and wing-coverts (except 



