116 THE BIRD WATCHER 
out the throat and roliffig the head at one another, 
the while, in the way I have described—I was so 
foolish as to think that this was the cry that I thought 
so wonderful, but not at its best, and that the real one, 
when I heard it again in the distance—for, as I say, 
it never sounded very near——was the same one at its 
best. With this false idea in my head I went home, 
and when somebody, assuming the character of a 
“Fulmar Petrel” himself—assured me that I had 
mistaken the guillemot’s note for his own, I was as 
convinced that he did not know what he was talking 
about, and that I did, as I am now to the contrary. 
On one point, however, I am clear, and cannot pos- 
sibly be mistaken, since I have verified it only in these 
last few days, having come, in fact, partly to do so— 
at least that made another motive for my journey. 
The fulmar petrel, if it does not bray like a guille- 
mot, has at least a nuptial note—and that a sufficiently 
striking one—of its own, which is uttered by both 
sexes as they lie on the rock, but never, in my ex- 
perience, whilst flying. Moreover, just as the vocal 
powers of the guillemot are now marvellously in- 
creased—or rather multiplied—compared with what 
they were some weeks earlier in the year, on my last 
visit, so, if I may trust my own memory—which, 
however, I never do trust—those of the fulmar 
petrel have suffered a corresponding diminution. I 
attribute both these facts to one and the same cause. 
At the earlier date the guillemots were in the very 
midst of their domestic duties, so that those feelings 
tae mere nis 
