524 TUBE-NOSED BIRDS. 



back, as well as the wing-coverts, have paler greyish margins. The beak is yellowish 

 horn-colour ; and the legs and feet are greyish black. 



Commonly known to sailors by the name of nelly, break -bones, or 

 stinker, the giant petrel is widely distributed over the temperate and high 

 southern latitudes, occasionally wandering to a considerable distance north of the 

 Equator, and in power of flight is fully equal to the albatrosses. In habits it differs 

 considerably from the latter, subsisting chiefly on the blubber and flesh of dead 

 seals and whales, as well as the bodies of other birds. Moseley, who compares it in 

 these respects to a vulture, writes that in Kerguelen, this petrel " soars all day 

 along the coast on the look-out for food. No sooner is an animal killed than 

 numbei-s appear as if by magic, and the birds are evidently well acquainted with 

 the usual proceedings of the sealei-s — who kill the sea-elephant, take off the skin 

 and blubber, and leave the carcase. They settled down here all round in groups 

 at a short distance, a dozen or so together, to wait, and began fighting amongst 

 themselves, as if to settle which was to have first bite." When gorged, they are 

 quite unable to fly ; and, like other members of the family, if disturbed they have 

 an unpleasant habit of disgorging an ill-smelling oily fluid. These birds breed on 

 Kerguelen and Prince Edward's Island, where they lay a single, dirty, white q^^ 

 in a natural hollow of the ground. The newly-hatched young are covered with a 

 long grey down ; and later on the nestlings, when approached, are stated to squirt 

 from their nostrils an oily fluid to a distance of six or eight feet, the old birds re- 

 maining a short distance away. 



In the Arctic regions and other parts of the Northern Hemi- 

 Folmar FetreL . . 



sphere, the place of the giant petrel is taken by the gull-like fulmar 



{Fulnuirus glcicialis), which is likewise the only well-defined representative of its 



genus. Of much smaller size than the giant petrel, the fulmar difters by the beak 



being inferior in length to the metatarsus, and the proportionately shorter and 



stouter nasal tubes, in which the septum between the two nostrils extends to within 



a short distance of the orifice ; the tail-feathers, moreover, are either twelve or 



fourteen in number. The fulmar measures about 19 inches in length, and displays 



great variation as regards colour. In the typical form, however, the head and neck 



are white, most of the upper-parts, as well as the tail-feathers, pearl-grey, the 



primaries slaty grey, and the breast and under-parts white. The iris is dark 



brown, the beak yellow at the tip, with yellowish white sides, and a greenish tinge 



at the base above, while the legs and feet are pale grey. A grey phase is also 



commonly met with, in which the head and neck, as well as the greater portion 



of both the upper and under-parts are ashy brown, with the back and wings 



somewhat darker than the rest. The fulmar breeds in the boreal regions of both 



hemispheres; but some authorities consider that in the North Pacific and Behring Sea 



it is replaced by two distinct species. In autumn and winter, the fulmar is a by 



no means uncommon, although probably involuntary visitor to the southern shores 



of Britain, and has been recorded as far south as the Mediterranean. 



In habits, the fulmar is very like its larger cousin, nesting in hollows in the 



ground, instead of in deep burrows like the shearwaters, and feeding largely on 



whale-blubber and refuse. Scoresby writes that these petrels "are remarkably 



easy and swift on the wing, flying to windward in the highest storms, and resting 



