328 THE GANNET 



the Fulmar Petrel {Fulmarus glacialis (L.)), Others who 

 have come after him conjectured that it might be the 

 Little Auk {Mergulus alle (L.)), but the breeding-places 

 of the Little Auk are limited. It is not likely that at the 

 present time the palm for superiority would be held by 

 either the Fulmar or the Little Auk. There is a competitor 

 which I should place before either of them, and that is the 

 common Kittiwake Gull {Rissa tridactyla (L.)). Kittiwakes 

 are marvellously plentiful right up to the North Cape, 

 where Mr. H. Seebohm estimated there were 500,000 at 

 Svserholt,* when he was there, and attempted a reckoning. 

 In the Fseroes they were found by Colonel Feilden breeding 

 in countless thousands, f and plenty of other striking evidence 

 might be adduced. Moreover, the Kittiwake of the North 

 Pacific, where it is very abundant, cannot be kept apart 

 from R. tridactyla, which further increases the tale of its 

 numbers, which unquestionably are immense. 



The Common Guillemot {Uria troile (L.)), again, must be 

 one of the most abundant birds in the northern hemisphere. 

 In the Faeroes, H. C. Muller, a good and truthful naturalist 

 and resident in those islands, states that as recently as 

 1862 the annual consumption of Guillemots was 55,000. { 



* " A History of British Birds," III., p. 342. 



t " Zoologist," 1872, p. 3288. 



X " FtTjroernes Fuglefauna " (18G2). 



