19^1- UssHER. — The Fulmar Petrel Breeding in Ireland. 151 



Ernest Green saw a colony of about twenty Fulmars on an 

 Ulster cliff in May of this year, and were informed that 

 these birds first appeared in the locality the previous year 

 and remained during the breeding season. 



Hitherto Fulmars have been chiefly known to us in 

 Ireland as oceanic birds, to be met with (as Mr. Farran 

 reports) at all seasons when one goes about 20 miles into 

 the Atlantic. They seldom or never have been met with 

 on shore, except when storm-driven, and in a dead or dying 

 condition, and their breeding-range has never before 

 extended in Europe so far south as Ireland. They have 

 been known to breed in great numbers on the St. Kilda 

 islands as long as there is any record ; and since 1878, when 

 they bred on Foula (Shetlands), they have extended their 

 range from point to point among the islands of northern 

 Scotland and the coasts of Sutherland and Caithness. Mr. 

 Harvie Brown has kindly sent me a map showing the dates 

 when Fulmars were first found breeding in the several 

 localities, and I am glad to learn that he is preparing a full 

 statement on the subject, which will shortly appear in the 

 Annals of Scottish Natural History. He remarks, after 

 some discussion : — " I think there remains no doubt now 

 that the Irish Fulmars are true offshoot colonies, unin- 

 fluenced by any whaling operations." 



It has been suggested that the advent of these birds to 

 our coasts has been brought about by the establishment of 

 two whaling-stations, at Inishkea and at Blacksod Bay, 

 but I am unable to attach much weight to this suggestion. 

 These whaling-stations are situated on the west coast, at 

 a distance by sea of more than twenty-five miles from the 

 Fulmars' colony, which is on the xorth coast, and the latter 

 is between ninety and a hundred miles from the cliff on 

 which Mr. Foster's friends found birds of the same species 

 in May, 1910. It is true that whales are towed in to the 

 stations, where they are cut up ; but every portion of 

 their bodies is there used up, and no Fulmars are to be 

 seen in the neighbourhood of these stations. 



I understand moreover, that the whaling steamers 

 chiefly go west from the Irish stations, and how this 



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