kK 
566 PUFFINIDA 
found on a ledge, in the interstices of large, irregular rock- 
masses, or sometimes in a hollow in soft soil on the face 
or slope of a cliff. In many cases no building-material is 
used, the eggs resting on the bare soil or rock; but fre- 
quently dry vegetation and small fragments of stone form 
a lining. 
Dr. Wiglesworth observed that ‘‘ when the nest was 
placed amidst bare rocks, it was very usual to find the 
shallow cavity lined with these little flat pieces of stone, 
often mere flakes, which had obviously been collected by 
the bird; but when the nesting cavity was formed on the 
herbage-covered ledges and grassy slopes, the tendency to line 
the cavity with these flakes of stone was not so pronounced, 
although still apparent. 
: This tendency, indeed, to line 
the nesting ‘cavity with small fragments of stone seems to 
be the most characteristic thing about the Fulmar’s nest” 
(St. Kilda and its Birds,’ pp. 64, 65). 
The single egg is white in colour, marked in some cases 
with a few minute reddish spots. 'The shell is of a coarse 
eranular texture, and has a peculiar, persistent, musky 
smell.! 
Incubation, in which both sexes take part, begins about 
the middle of April. 
This species has many breeding-resorts round the north- 
west coast of Scotland, chief among which may be men- 
tioned St. Kilda, where, in Soay especially, it nests in great 
numbers; in the Shetlands it has spread considerably of 
late years, as also in the Hebrides. 
Mr. Eagle Clarke states that ‘‘ the extension of the range 
of the Fulmar to Fair Isle and the Western and Northern 
Isles of Scotland, as well as to the north coast of the 
mainland, may be due to the congestion that has probably 
taken place in St. Kilda, which until a quarter of a century 
ago was its only native British habitat. During recent 
years the human population of St. Kilda has markedly 
decreased, and this, taken with the fact that the people are 
no longer dependent on the Fulmar for food to the same 
extent as formerly, has led to fewer of these birds being 
killed, and hence a considerable increase in their numbers 
would naturally result, and the seeking of new haunts 
' Dried skins retain this odour for many years. 
