596 Mr, A. Trevor-Battye on the 



Gulls and Fulmars ; and as the Fulmar fed this sound was 

 very noticeable. The Fulmars which contested morsels with 

 the Glaucous Gulls almost always, to my surprise, came off 

 victors. Colonel Feilden has mentioned (Zool. 1895, p. 85), as 

 a new observation, that Fulmars in Advent Bay flew over the 

 land along the shore-line. I frequently saw them well inland. 

 I have seen a pair of Fulmars (where none nest) flying low 

 down round and round the " Bastion ""^ — a glacier-encircled 

 rock where Garwood and I had our camp under Horn Moun- 

 tain — for two hours at a time, and apparently with no purpose 

 whatever beyond the fun of flying. I have seen during a 

 whole morning a ceaseless stream of Fulmars moving up an 

 inland valley, on their way across Spitsbergen from Sassen 

 Bay to Stor Fjord. And I have seen, on a fine morning, in 

 Eckman Bay, every Fulmar — and there must have been two 

 hundred — on the water suddenly rise high in the air, and 

 after wheeling round, like Rooks, disappear over the moun- 

 tains in a north-easterly direction. 



I cannot understand the writer who says (Yarrell, 4th ed. 

 iv. p. 6) : " Round Spitsbergen both forms are very numerous, 

 and the light one breeds in thousands on some of the islands.'''^ 

 I may say at once that I have never seen any Fulmar whose 

 breast was '' white " as a Gull's is white; and most certainly, 

 of the thousands T saw last year, the " white " parts of not 

 one could be described even by courtesy as anything better 

 than a " dirty light shade.'' I was constantly looking out for 

 light examples, and the very lightest I saw I shot, and it is now 

 in the National Collection, where it can speak for itself. 



In illustration of the power of flight of the Fulmar, I may 

 quote the following from my diary under date July 12, 

 a propos of a very severe gale : — " Many Kittiwakes were 

 sitting on shore afraid of the weather. The Guillemots, Little 

 Auks, and Fulmars quite indiff'erent. Only the Fulmars could 

 fly against it, flying low and running along on the waves. The 

 Auks rising remained in the same place, and the Guillemots 

 barely made any headway.'^ 



* [Saimder8 is responsible for this statement : he took it from Malmgren 

 nud others. — Edd.1 



