BIRDS. 381 



associated with those harmless little birds. Their dusky 

 plumage, diminutive size, their habit of running upon the 

 surface of the water, and the circumstances under which the 

 mariner sees them, account very naturally for the feelings with 

 which he regards them. Very differently are they viewed at 

 St. Kilda, one of the northern islands of Scotland. There the 

 birds are regarded as benefactors, giving the means of light 

 throughout the long nights of winter ; for so full of oil is the 

 body, that a wick passed through it will burn as if fed from 

 the oil-reservoir of a lamp. The usual practice of the inha- 

 bitants, however, is to collect the oil by itself. Mr. John 

 Macgillivray, who visited the Hebrides in 1840, states,* 

 " the bird sits very close upon the nest, from which it will 

 allow itself to be taken by the hand, vomiting on being 

 handled a quantity of pure oil, which is carefully preserved 

 by the fowlers, and the bird allowed to escape." A larger 

 species, the Fulmar Petrel (Procellaria glacialis) is even 

 more valuable to the inhabitants of St. Kilda. " This bird," 

 says Mr. J. Macgillivray, " exists here in almost incredible 

 numbers, and to the natives is by far the most important of 

 the productions of the island. It forms one of the principal 

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

 in its pursuit. The old birds, on being seized, instantly 

 vomit a quantity of clear and amber-coloured oil, which im- 

 parts to the whole bird, its nest and young, and even to the 

 rock which it frequents, a peculiar and very disagreeable 

 odour." Within the last few years only, according to Mr. 

 W. Thompson, has the Fulmar been known to visit the Irish 

 coast. The Stormy Petrel, on the contrary, is at all times to 

 be met with on the western shores, and breeds on several of 

 the islands which are washed by the Atlantic. f Mr. George 

 C. Hyndman, who visited Tory Island, off the north coast of 

 the County Donegal, found the Stormy Petrel living com- 

 fortably in the Rabbit burrows, and there bringing out its 

 young. After the hurricane of the 7th of January, 1839, Petrels 

 were found not only in the central parts of Ireland, but even 

 in the extreme east, having been driven across the island by 

 the violence of the gale.J 



* Edinburgh New Phil. Journal. 

 t W. Thompson's Report on the Fauna, 1840. 



j W. Thompson, Note on the Effects of the Hurricane on the Lower 

 Animals. Annals of Natural History. 



