NOTES FROM AN ARCTIC JOURNAL. $15 
The Arctic Expedition, composed of H.M. ships ‘ Alert’? and 
‘Discovery,’ accompanied by the ‘ Valorous,’ sailed from Ports- 
mouth for Greenland on the 29th May, 1875, under the command 
of Captain G.S. Nares, R.N. A rough voyage across the Atlantic, 
in a small ship over-crowded with stores, afforded but few oppor- 
tunities for researches in Natural History, whilst a cabin six feet 
by seven feet, containing clothes, appurtenances and outfit for a 
possible residence of three years within the Arctic Circle, was not 
conducive to the happiness or comfort of a landsman. Most of my 
time, in consequence, was passed on deck endeavouring to find a 
dry corner, when not at meals or sleeping. At times the weather 
moderated sufficiently to permit the use of the towing-net, when 
some of the Atlantic surface-fauna was brought on board, which, 
placed under the microscope, served to wile away an hour. A few 
species of sea-birds were observed between Ireland and Cape 
Farewell, and the observations on their habits, and dispersion over 
the Atlantic admit of the following notice. 
On the 6th June, when 170 miles west of the coast of Galway 
and 360 miles south-west of St. Kilda,—the nearest known 
breeding station of the species,—Fulmars, Fulmarus glacialis, 
approached the ship, and remained constant attendants until 
entering the ice of Smith Sound, a distance of twenty-five degrees 
of latitude, or over 1500 miles. I have referred in a previous 
volume* to the peculiar distribution of the Fulmar in the Atlantic, 
namely, to the north of the fifty-third parallel, an observation first 
recorded by the late Professor Goodsir. That this bird should be 
extremely common in the Atlantic in the latitude of Ireland, whilst 
Thompsont+ considered it an extremely rare visitor to the same 
coast, is noteworthy. Its absence from the neighbourhood of the 
Shetland Islands during the breeding season, with its presence 
some thirty or forty miles to the northward, and its abundance 
around the Feroe Islands, where it has been a breeding species for 
the last forty years, are points in the natural history of this bird 
which require elucidation. Fulmars and Petrels are far closer 
attendants on a vessel during rough than smooth weather, the 
reason doubtless being that the marine organisms which compose 
their usual food sink to a stratum of undisturbed water when the 
surface-layer of the sea becomes agitated by storms. The blue 
variety of the Fulmar is apparently merely an immature stage of 
* «The Zoologist,’ 1877, p. 470. + ‘Nat. Hist. Ireland,’ vol. iii., p. 406. 
