430 BRITISH BIRDS. 



FULMARUS GLACIALIS. 

 FULMAR PETREL. 



(PLATE 56.) 



Procellaria cinerea, Briss. Orn. vi. p. 143 (1760). 



Procellaria glacialis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 213 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum 



Omelin, Latham, Temminck, (Dresser), (Saunders), &c. 

 Procellaria gronlandica, Gunner, Leem. Beskr. Finm. Lapp. p. 273 (1767). 

 Fulmarus glacialis (Linn.), Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii. pt. 1, p. 234, pi. 27 (1825). 

 Rhantistes glacialis (Linn.), Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 105 (1829). 

 Procellaria hiemalis, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 800 (1831). 

 Procellaria minor, Kjcerb. Danm. Fugle, p. 324 (1852). 

 Fulmarus minor (Kjcerb.), Bonap. Consp. ii. p. 187 (1857). 



The only regular breeding-place of the Fulmar in the British Islands is 

 on St. Kilda and the adjoining islets arid stacks a group of rocky islands 

 about forty miles west of the Hebrides. One or two solitary pairs are said 

 to breed on the west coast of Skye, and others are said to have done so half 

 a century ago in several localities on the west coast of Scotland. In winter 

 the Fulmar is a somewhat rare straggler to the British coasts, and, curiously 

 enough, has been seen far less frequently off the Irish coast than else- 

 where. 



The Fulmar is a circumpolar bird, entirely confined to the northern hemi- 

 sphere. Its breeding-colonies are somewhat isolated, but its geographical 

 distribution appears to be continuous, being apparently only interrupted in 

 Northern Asia. The probable reason why it does not visit the Arctic 

 shores of Siberia is that they are only free from ice in August, when it is 

 busily engaged in feeding its young. In the North Pacific its principal 

 breeding-places are on the Kurile Islands, south of Kamtschatka, the 

 Pribylov Islands in Behring Sea, and Copper Island, between the Sandwich 

 Islands and California. In the Arctic Ocean, halfway to the Atlantic, 

 there is a colony on Prince Albert Land, and examples have been known to 

 wander as far north as Grinnell Land. There are enormous colonies on 

 both sides of Davis Strait, Iceland, St. Kilda, the Faroes, Spitzbergen, 

 Bear Island, and Nova Zembla. In winter its range in the Atlantic 

 appears to be about as far south as New York in the west, and the Medi- 



