Ornithology of St. Kilda. 93 



hundred feet below. No bird flies more gracefully than the 

 Fulmar. It floats in the air with scarcely any efibrt^ and 

 passes to and fro for minutes together without beating its 

 wings. It was very tame and fluttered in the air a few feet 

 from the edge of the cliff where I was standing, and every 

 now and then hovered like a Kestrel, or turned round as if 

 on a pivot. Some parts of the cliffs, where the soil is 

 loose and covered with turf, are almost white with sitting 

 Fulmars. The Fulmar begins to lay about the middle 

 of May and the young are able to fly early in August. The 

 bird rarely if ever burrows deep enough in the ground to 

 conceal itself whilst incubating, and in the majority of in- 

 stances only makes a hole large enough to conceal half its 

 body. In some cases it is content with laying its e^^ under 

 some projecting tuft or even on the bare and exposed ledge 

 of a cliffy in a similar place to that so often selected by the 

 Guillemot. The nests are very slight and in some instances 

 are dispensed with altogether. I noticed that a little dry 

 grass was the only material the Fulmar used in making its 

 nest. 



The Fulmars we caught ejected a large quantity of amber- 

 coloured oil. Most of this issued from the mouth, but a small 

 portion came through the tubular nostrils, especially when 

 the bird was dying. Donald told me that the Fulmar dives, 

 and that it often takes the baits from the long lines. When 

 disturbed by the report of a gun, the Fulmars filled the air 

 like snowflakes, and the mighty hordes of Puffins looked like 

 a huge swarm of bees darkening the air as far as we could 

 see. The natives do not collect so many eggs of this bird as 

 I should have expected, but their grand Fulmar harA'^est is 

 when the young are almost ready for flight. The natives 

 now and then take small nuts from the crops of the Fulmar. 

 I obtained one of these nuts ; and Sir William Milner pro- 

 cured several. He supposed them to be Brazilian, and they 

 are doubtless brought north by the Gulf-stream and picked 

 up by the birds from the water. 



There can be no doubt that several races of Fulmar inhabit 

 St. Kilda. The natives assert that there are two kinds^ a 



