21 



PETREL GROUP 



in 1840, and two specimens were taken in Ireland in 1891. one in 

 Fermanagh and the other in Antrim. 



This petrel, which was formerl\' known as Procellaria ici/sotii, has 

 much the same habits as the other members of the i^roup ; and it will 

 suffice to state that in Kerguelen Island, in the South Atlantic, it lays 

 its sin"-le e^g on the bare ground, either in some natural depression 

 among the stones, or in a slight hollow scratched out by the birds 

 themselves. 



Of the white-bellied, or frigate, petrel {Piidi^ocirovia marina , which 

 represents a genus by itself characterised by the broad and flattened 

 claws and the grey and white plumage, one specimen was picked up 

 dead on Walney Island, Lancashire, in 1890, while a second was 

 recorded from Colon.say, off the west coast of Scotland, in 1897. 



With the large gre\' gull-like bird known as the 

 fulmar we come to the second group of British petrels, 

 . . all of which arc of larger bodily size than the storm- 



petrel and its relatives, and form a group distinguished 

 from the latter by the fact that the nasal tubes may have distinct 

 double apertures and are generally divided internally, while the second 

 primary quill is not longer than the first, and may be shorter. The 

 number of tail-feathers is variable ; but there are certain features in 

 the skeleton by which the members of this section of the family 

 (re"-arded by some writers as a family by itself, under the name of 

 Puffinida;) may be distinguished from the last. Of the fulmars there 

 are four species, of which three are confined to the Pacific, while the 

 present one is a native of the North Atlantic. Together with certain 

 other allied southern genera, these birds are characterised by the 

 presence of more or less distinct transverse ridges on the sides of the 

 palate ; while they are specially distinguished by the powerful beak 

 and feet, the enclosure of the nostrils in a short single tube by which 

 they arc somewhat concealed, and the presence of fourteen tail-feathers. 

 Always bearing in mind that it is broadly distinguished from the 

 gulls by its tubular nostrils, the fulmar cannot possibly be confounded 

 with any other British bird. Like some of the skuas, it exhibits two 

 distinct colour-phases, in the more common of which the back and 

 part of the wings are light grey, the quills dusky black, the head, neck, 

 and under-parts white, and the legs and feet bluish-brown colour, while 

 that portion of the beak which overhangs the nostrils is nearly black 

 and the remainder yellow. On the other hand, in the less common 

 dark phase the general colour of the plumage is uniformly dusky grey 



