FULMAR PETREL. 321 



texture, and minute, dust-like markings readily dis- 

 tinguish the it^g of the Stormy Petrel from those of all 

 other species breeding in our area with which it is at all 

 likely to be confused. 



Family PROCELLARIID.E. Genus Fulmarus. 



FULMAR PETREL. 



Fulmarus glacialis (^Linnaus). 



Single Brooded. Laying season, middle of May to 

 middle of June. 



British breeding area : The only important 

 British breeding-place of this Petrel is in the St. Kilda 

 group. It is said, on what appears to be trustvvorthy 

 authority, tliat a few pairs breed on Foula in the 

 Shetlands, but I cannot accept the evidence of its doing 

 so on the Flannans and the Seven Hunters off the 

 coast of Lewis until less ambiguous and playing-for- 

 safcty kind of statements are made than "recent evi- 

 dence points to the establishment of colonies on " those 

 islets, as a modern master was condescending enough 

 to inform his befogged and bewildered readers ! 



Breeding habits : The Fulmar is more or less a 

 resident in the British seas, but subject to much nomadic 

 movement when the breeding season is over. Its breed- 

 ing-haunt in our area is the lofty stacks and beetling 

 precipices of St. Kilda and the neighbouring isles — the 

 vast downs and crags and turf-grown cliffs that spring 

 from the wild open Atlantic to a culminating height of 

 twelve hundred ft-et above the waves. No other part of 



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