414 NATATORES. 







it, sufficient to consume double nay, a hundred times the 

 quantity. 



Baron Cuvier is not quite correct in saying that the fulmar 

 petrel is " de la faille d"un gros canard" for it is little more 

 than half the weight of the common wild-duck ; and the 

 labours which the birds perform are done by numbers more 

 than by the single effort of individuals. The nasal tube has 

 but one opening ; the bill is a formidable instrument, straight 

 for part of its length, and brownish ; but with a strong pro- 

 duced and hooked nail at the point of the upper mandible, 

 against which a strong truncated yellow knob on the under 

 one. The hooked nail is toothed, so that the hold which it 

 can take in tearing is, perhaps, firmer than that of any other 

 bill, the beaks of the falcons not excepted. The legs are 

 dusky, the irides yellow. The upper part from the setting 

 of the neck to the lower part of the back is grey, with a 

 dusky tinge upon the wings, and all the rest is white. There 

 is no difference in the plumage of the sexes ; but the young 

 are mottled with grey and brown, and have a dark spot be- 

 fore the eye. They are at all times so full of oil, that the 

 people endeavour to catch them by a noose which draws 

 tight round the neck to prevent that which is in the 

 stomach from being lost. In some places, the produce of 

 the fulmar rocks is pressed for oil in the same way as that of 

 the olive yards in the south and the oil is used for similar 

 purposes. 



The genus piijfinus contains very discursive birds, one 

 of which only has been ascertained to breed in the British 

 islands ; and of the other two that have been found alive on 

 the shores, one is exceedingly rare, and the other by no means 

 common. 



The characters which distinguish them from the other 

 genus, procellaria, to which they are nearly allied, are, the 



