562 Proceediiigs of the Royal Physical Society. 



others, swoop down upon the nest, gash the egg across with 

 its beak, and proceed to devour the contents. 



Q^. Fulmar Petrel {Procellaria glacialis), (Mallemoke). — 

 In the Zoologist for 1879, p. 380, there appeared a letter from 

 a Mr Garriock, of Lerwick, stating that, on the 4th June 

 1878, a party of about a dozen pairs of fulmars had formed a 

 colony on the most inaccessible cliff of Foula. This colony 

 increased next year to about twenty pairs, and I am informed 

 by Mr Laurenson that it is still in existence. The position 

 chosen seems to be very inaccessible, for Mr Laurenson states 

 that very few eggs have ever been got. This is an exceedingly 

 interesting example of a recent extension of range of this bird. 



67. Manx Shearwater {Puffinus anglorum), (Lyrie). — This 

 bird is not often seen, and is confined to a few localities, of 

 which Yell, Unst, and Foula are the chief. In Unst it is 

 apparently scarcer than it used to be a few years back. 

 Saxby expresses the opinion that this bird produces two 

 broods in the season ; probably from the fact that fresh eggs 

 may be found from the beginning of May to the end of June, 

 but I think there is no foundation for this belief. 



68. Storm Petrel {Thalassidroma pelagica), (Swallow, 

 Spencie). — The " swallow," as they call this pretty little bird 

 at Oxna, is a very late breeder, and does not arrive at that 

 island until the last few days of June. Almost immediately 

 after their arrival the eggs are deposited, either in holes in 

 the turf, or under large stones on the raised beaches men- 

 tioned by Hewitson. At the date of my visit to Oxna — the 

 15th June — none of the petrels had yet arrived, and their 

 breeding places were occupied by starlings, whose fully- 

 fledged young scrambled about the crevices like rats. The 

 petrels are still numerous on this island, but on the neigh- 

 bouring isle of Papa they have much decreased of late, owing 

 to the people keeping cats, which destroy the birds as they 

 come out of their holes in the evening. The storm petrel 

 nests in many places all round Shetland, but the people as a 

 rule know almost nothing about the bird. Some of them 

 believe, or at anyrate say, it never comes to land at all, but 

 hatches its young under its wing out at sea. On Oxna they 

 ascertain the holes which are occupied by what the old man 

 described as "a wild smell du kens." 



