CAPPED PETEEL. 361 



material." Although Mr. Smith's fulmar seized and 

 killed a greenfinch (which it did not, however, eat), he 

 considers it " a harmless bird, and a very tame one." 



With regard to the voracity of the fulmar, Mr. Smith 

 states that a fisherman told him that he soaked a piece 

 of oakum in colza oil, and on throwing it overboard into 

 the sea, a fulmar, seeing the track of grease on the water, 

 seized the lump of oakum and swallowed it. This bird 

 was shortly after shot by Mr. Booth, and sent to be pre- 

 served to Mr. Gunn, who found the oakum in its stomach 

 (" Eough Notes," p. 218). Mr. T. E. Gunn showed me 

 in November, 1869, a fulmar which he had received 

 from Yarmouth ; it was in a very weather-beaten condi- 

 tion, and had been shot resting on the River Bure. On 

 dissection a piece of tarred line was found coiled up in 

 its stomach, which accounted for the inflamed condi- 

 tion of one side. Mr. Pycraffc, late of Yarmouth, also 

 obtained in November, 1885, from the stomach of a 

 fulmar, a stout barbed steel fish-hook, two and a half 

 inches in length, or four inches following the curve, and 

 twenty-eight inches of twisted cord attached to it. 

 After taking this hook with the bait, the fulmar actually 

 swallowed a second, thrown from the fishing-smack, and 

 was captured (J. H. Gurney, jun., 1. c., p. 225). 



Of the fifteen specimens mentioned by Mr. Smith 

 two were examples of the dark form, and were rather 

 smaller than the light-coloured race. At the end of 

 January, 1888, two fulmars were taken at Cley-next- 

 the-Sea, one of which was sent by Mr. H. M. Upcher to 

 the Zoological Gardens, where, however, it did not live 

 long. Others have been obtained from the same locality 

 since; and on the 13th December, 1889, Mr. A. Pat- 

 terson tells me he found one of these birds dead on the 

 beach at Yarmouth. 



(ESTEELATA HLE2SITATA (Knhl). 

 CAPPED PETEEL. 



The first occurrence in Britain of this rare wanderer, 

 and (as will be seen in the sequel) perhaps extinct 



