

LXXXVI. FULMAR 



(Fulmaris glacialis.} 



THE drawing of the Fulmar is from a live one brought from 

 St Kilda by a yachting friend. It was done life-size, but I 

 have only reproduced the head in order to show the very 

 peculiar beak, with the nostrils in a tube. In other respects it 

 is much like a Herring Gull the same in colour, but not quite 

 of so handsome a shape. 



We saw numbers of them flying about near St Kilda, where 

 they inhabit the high cliffs, and serve, when smoked and dried, as 

 winter food for the natives, as well as for furnishing oil for their 

 lamps. There were many near some similar islands on the coast 

 of Iceland, and near the Faroe Islands, where there were also 

 crowds of Guillemots and other sea-birds. It was very foggy 

 on the day we approached those islands, but one could guess 

 where the land lay by seeing the birds fly in that direction with 

 fish in their bills. 



The illustration of the STORM PETREL (Procellaria pelagica) 

 was done from a dead one. The first time I ever saw the Storm 

 Petrel was in a great gale, on the 3rd October 1860, when some 

 of them were blown inland over the top of the house. We 

 mistook them at first for Swallows, and wondered at their being 

 here so late. I have seen specimens in the island of St Kilda 

 captured by the natives, and offered to us for sale. 1 have 

 no doubt they breed there, but we had no time to go in search 

 of them, being on our way to Iceland. We feared that if the 

 wind rose we might be storm-stayed there, for when the sea is 

 rough, neither landing nor embarkation is possible, as there is 

 such a swell on the rocks of that unsheltered shore. 



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