118 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



as an old chronicler records that "A gentleman of 

 the name of Campbell being fowling among the 

 rocks of Mull, and having mounted a ladder to 

 take some birds out of their holes, was so surprised 

 by one of them squirting a quantity of oil in his 

 face that he quitted his hold and fell down and 

 perished." Although the name of the bird is not 

 mentioned specifically, I think that the use of the 

 ladder almost proves that it was a Fulmar's nest 

 which the unfortunate fowler was raiding. 



Within the nineteenth century the bird has estab- 

 lished itself as a breeding species in the Faroes to 

 the detriment of the Gannet, and only as far back 

 as 1878 it founded a breeding colony in the 

 Shetlands. Seton quotes two opinions of the bird, 

 which placed side by side appear to be ridiculously 

 contradictory. The St. Kildan proudly says of 

 it, " Can the world exhibit a more valuable com- 

 modity ? The Fulmar furnishes oil for the lamp, 

 down for the bed, the most salubrious food, and 

 the most efficacious ointment for healing wounds. 

 Deprive us of the Fulmar, and St. Kilda is no 

 more." And the Faroese: " Nasty, stinking beast! 

 Why, even his egg keeps its stench for years ; his 

 flesh no man can eat ; and if you sleep on a bed 

 in which even a handful of feathers have been put 

 by mistake, you will leave it long before morning." 



Kenneth Macaulay, who visited the island more 

 than a century and a quarter ago, says, in writing 

 of the Fulmar, that "to plunder his nest, or to 

 offer indignity to it, is a high crime and misde- 

 meanour." The sacred regard for the bird implied 

 in this quotation does not seem to have been 

 maintained, for it is now remorselessly snared upon 

 its nest during the breeding season on all the 

 islands except St. Kilda and the Doon. 



