UFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 35 



quotations will show that it is a greedy and voracious feeder on a 

 varied diet. The best account seems to have been given by Mac- 

 gillivray (1852) as follows: 



From the various statements made by observers, it appears that the fulmar 

 feeds on fishes, cephalopodous mollnsca, cirripedia, most other kinds of animal 

 substance, especially such as are oily or fatty. The Rev. Mr. Scoresby, in his 

 "Arctic Regions," states that it is the constant companion of the whalefisher, 

 joining his ship immediately on passing the Shetland Islands, and accom- 

 panying him to the highest accessible latitudes, keeping an eager watch for 

 anything thrown overboard. Fulmars are extremely greedy of the fat of the 

 whale. Though few should be seen when a whale is about being captured, yet, 

 as soon as the fleshing process commences, they rush in from all quarters and 

 frequently accumulate to many thousands in number. They then occupy the 

 greasy track of the ship; and, being audaciously greedy, fearlessly advance 

 within a few yards of the men employed in cutting up the whale. If, indeed, the 

 fragments of fat do not float sufficiently away, they approach so near the scene 

 of operations that they are knocked doAvn with boat hooks in great numbers, and 

 sometimes taken up by the hand. The sea immediately about th^e ship's stern is 

 sometimes so completely covered with them that a stone can scarcely be 

 thrown overboard without striking one of them. When anything is thus cast 

 among them those nearest the spot where it falls take the alarm, and these 

 exciting some fear in others more remote sometimes put a thousand of them 

 in motion ; but, as in rising into the air, they assist their wings for the first 

 few yards by striking the water with their feet, there is produced by such a num- 

 ber of them a loud and most singular splashing. It is highly amusing to 

 observe the voracity with which they seize the pieces of fat that fall in their 

 way ; the size and quantity of the pieces they take at a meal ; the curious 

 chuckling noise which, in their anxiety for dispatch, they always make ; and 

 the jealousy with which they view and the boldness with which they attack 

 any of their species that are engaged in devouring the finest morsels. They 

 frequently glut themselves so completely that they are unable to fly ; in which 

 case, when they are not relieved by a quantity being disgorged, they endeavor 

 to get on the nearest piece of ice, where they rest until the advancement of 

 digestion restores their wonted powers. Then, if opportunity admit, they return 

 with the same gust to the banquet as before ; and though numbers of the species 

 . may be killed, and allowed to float about among them, they appear unconscious 

 of danger to themselves. When carrion is scarce the fulmars follow the living 

 whale, and sometimes by their peculiar motions, when hovering at the surface 

 of the water, point out to the fisher the position of the animal of which he is 

 in pursuit. They can not make much impression on the. dead whale until some 

 more powerful animal tears away the skin ; the epidermis and rete mucosum 

 they entirely remove, but true skin is too tough for them to make way 

 through it. 



Captain Collins (1899), writing of its habits on the Newfound- 

 land Banks, says : 



The fulmar subsists chiefly on small fishes, and, doubtless, participates with 

 the hagdon in the pursuit of the squid ; but I have no recollection of noticing 

 in its stomach, as I have in that of the hag, the presence of pieces of squid 

 or the beaks of that animal. I have, however, frequently observed that the 

 contents of the stomachs of many of this species consisted almost entirely of 

 small fish. Like Pufflnus, it is very fond of oily food, which it swallows with. 



