150 The Irish Naturalist. vSeptember, 



wheeling on the wing ; their upper surface was grey, but 

 not of the bright bhiish-grey of the Herring Gulls and 

 Kittiwakes ; some were of a browner grey and some of a 

 more ashy grey, and a few had darker and lighter shades in 

 their mantle, giving them a parti-coloured appearance. 



I then examined the birds sitting on their nesting- 

 places ; these were not crowded together like tliose of 

 Kittiwakes, but on ledges scattered here and then^ along 

 the cliff-face, and appeared to be earthy, and in some cases, 

 at least, edged with growing vegetation ; occasionally in 

 a recess overhung by the rock above. In one instance I 

 saw two birds sitting on the same ledge close together. I 

 remarked that a hatching bird sat with her white head and 

 neck held upright, as in Mr. Kearton's pliotograph of a 

 Fulmar on her nest,i and not in the crouching attitude 

 of a gull, while the wings appeared to be drooped loosely 

 from the body. 



I counted eighteen of these sitting Fulmars, but there 

 were probably more out of my range of view ; all that I 

 saw were about the same part of the cliff, which I believe 

 to be about 400 feet above the water. The Herring Gull 

 will occasionally breed on similar ledges, but scarcely so 

 high up ; and these birds, from their form, deportment, 

 and manner of flight, differed conspicuously from gulls. 



I had now assured myself that they were Fulmars, but 

 in the afternoon, when we were returning from some islands, 

 several of them flew close past and round our boat with 

 the peculiar gliding flight, not unlike that of a shearwater ; 

 we could see their thick heads, and recognised them plainly 

 as Fulmars. They flew to the breeding cliff I have des- 

 cribed. 



On the 14th July, as we were sailing to Black Rock 

 lighthouse, and not far from our destination, we met with 

 one Fulmar and also a Manx Shearwater, and had an 

 additional opportunity of observing their flight. 



Since my brief notice of the above discovery appeared 

 in the Irish Naturalist (p. 148) I have been informed by 

 Mr. Nevin H. Foster that Messrs. Herbert Malcomson and 



i " Our Rarer British Bir Is," pagf 76. 



