130 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



With the fine cliffs of the south isles of Barra (Barra Head, 

 Mingulay, etc.), in full view of St Kilda, it is the more 

 remarkable that the birds should not have come to nest 

 there until in quite recent years. It would appear, however, 

 that formerly they seldom extended their flight far in this 

 direction. In 1884 Mr W. Donald, of the s.s. Dunara Castle, 

 for the first time in his experience saw one bird at the 

 11 Hawes Bank," which lies to the south, or a point or two 

 west of south, of Tiree, and in the fairway of the steamer 

 route to Castlebay, Barra ; but from that year forward he has 

 reported seeing others over this same bank. It was here 

 also that Mr R. Godfrey, when returning from St Kilda on 

 the Dunara Castle via Barra Head in midsummer 1905, saw 

 nine Fulmars. Records of summer occurrences inside the 

 Outer Hebrides, once also so very unusual, are becoming 

 more frequent, and as we have seen, some pairs have quite 

 recently arrived at the Shiant Isles ; but whether these 

 pioneering birds came from the north by way of the Minch, 

 or from the west and south via Barra Head, it is difficult to 

 decide. On 25th July 1906 Mr J. Pedder saw one as far in 

 as the Sound of Sleat, near Isle Ornsay, between Skye and 

 the mainland (Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1906, p. 240). 



Ireland. 



The fact — a most interesting one — of the extension of 

 the breeding-range of the Fulmar southwards to Ireland was 

 chronicled by Mr R. J. Ussher, in the Irish Naturalist for last 

 year (p. 149). On nth July 191 1 he counted eighteen 

 sitting birds on the ledges of a great sea-cliff on the northern 

 coast of Mayo, and from a boatman he ascertained that they 

 had come there some four years before, and were increasing. 

 Later, he learned that a colony of about twenty birds had 

 been seen on an Ulster cliff in May 191 1. They were said 

 to have first appeared at this second locality in 1910. 



This completes our survey down to and including 191 1. 

 The data, though no doubt incomplete at many points, bear 

 striking testimony to the rapid progress and widespread 

 nature of the recent colonising effort of the Fulmar in 



