STORMY PETREL. Thalassidroma pel&gica. 



a white egg in some convenient recess, a rabbit-burrow being often employed for the 

 purpose. 



Mr. Keid, of Kirkwell, Orkneys, has kindly given the following short but graphic 

 description of these birds while breeding. " They land in our islets every breeding-season. 

 I have had them handed to me alive, frequently together with their eggs, and stinking 

 little things they were, as bad I suppose as the fulmar." 



This bird possesses a singular amount of oil, and has the power of throwing it from 

 the mouth when terrified. It is said that this oil, which is very pure, is collected largely 

 in St. Kilda by catching the bird on its egg, where it sits very closely, and making it 

 disgorge the oil into a vessel. The bird is then released and another taken. The 

 inhabitants of the Faroe islands make a curious use of this bird when young and very 

 fat, by simply drawing a wick through the body and lighting it at the end which projects 

 from the beak. This unique lamp will burn for a considerable period. Sometimes the 

 Petrel appears in flocks, and has been driven southwards by violent storms, some having 

 been shot on the Thames, others in Oxfordshire, and some near Birmingham. 



The general colour of this bird is sooty black, and the outer edges of the tertials and 

 the upper tail-coverts are white. Its length is barely six inches. 



A VERY much larger species, the FULMAR PETREL, is also one of our British birds. 



This Petrel is very plentiful in the island of St. Kilda, and an excellent account of 

 the bird and its importance to the inhabitants has been given by Mr. McGillivray, who 

 visited the island in 1860. "This bird exists here in almost incredible numbers. ... It 

 forms one of the principal means of support to the inhabitants, who daily risk their lives 

 in its pursuit. The Fulmar breeds on the face of the highest precipices, and only on such 

 as are furnished with small grassy shelves, every spot on which, above a few inches in 

 extent, is occupied with one or more of its nests. The nest is formed of herbage, seldom 

 bulky, generally a mere shallow excavation in the turf and the withered tufts of the sea- 

 pink, in which the bird deposits a single egg of a pure white colour when clean, which is 

 seldom the case. ... On the 30th of June, having partially descended a nearly perpen- 

 dicular precipice six hundred feet in height, the whole face of which was covered with 

 the nests of the Fulmar, I enjoyed an opportunity of watching the habits of this bird, 

 and describe from personal observation. 



The nests had all been robbed about a month before by the natives, who esteem the 

 eggs of this species above ail others. Many of the nests contained each a young bird a 



