FULMAR. 157 



completely in the air, as if on a pivot. But the Fulmars in the 

 air are soon left to themselves, and all attention directed to 

 those sitting quietly on their nests. In some parts of the 

 cliffs, where the soil is loose and turf-grown, the ground is 

 almost white with sitting Fulmars. Every available spot is a 

 Fulmar nest ; and as you explore the cliffs, large numbers of 

 birds fly out from all directions where they had not previously 

 been noticed. The Fulmar begins to lay about the middle of 

 May, and I was told that the young are able to fly in July. It 

 very rarely burrows deep enough in the ground to conceal 

 itself whilst incubating, and, in the majority of cases, only 

 makes a hole large enough to half conceal itself, whilst in a 

 great many instances it is content to lay its eggs under some 

 projecting tuft, or even on the bare and exposed ledge of a 

 cliff, in a similar place to that so often selected by the 

 Guillemot. I imagine that the bird makes a small excavation 

 wherever it can ; but there are not suitable places for all, and 

 great numbers have to breed in unfavourable positions." 



Nest. — Mr. Robert Read sends me the following note : — 

 " The Fulmar breeds in vast numbers in S. Kilda, where they 

 usually lay their single white egg in hollows scraped out of the 

 grassy turf covering the rocky terraces along the cliffs. Many, 

 however, lay on the bare rocky ledges, where the egg is usually 

 placed in a slight hollow or under a projecting piece of rock. 

 In June, 1888, I got along one of the narrow ledges to where 

 a Fulmar was sitting, and at length managed to reach it with 

 my stick. The bird would not stir for some time, but at last 

 it ejected a stream of oil at the stick, and then flew off, 

 leaving a single egg which I found, on blowing it, to be about 

 a week or ten days incubated." 



Eggs. — One. Chalky-white and rough in texture. Axis, 

 2-75-3*o5 inches; diam., I-75-2T. 



THE PIED FULMARS. GENUS DAPTION. 



Daption, Stephens in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 239 (1826). 



Type, D. capensis (Linn.). 



As in the true Fulmars the tail-feathers are fourteen in 

 number in the genus Dapiion^ but the bill is more slender, and 



