62 NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTION'S IN ALASKA. 



FuLMARUS GLACiALis GLUPiscHA SteJD. Pacific Fulmar. 



This is the common Fulmar of the North Pacific. A number of specimens are iu the National 

 Museum collection from TJnalaska. 



From the account of the voyage of the Vega we learn that F. glupischa occurs on Bear Island, 

 Spitzbergen, and Nova Zenibla, being more common on the two former groups. 



They nest abundantly on Bear Island, choosing sloping cliifs not dififlcult of access. Ou May 

 28, 1866, their eggs were found upon the bare ice which covered the rocks. At one place a bird 

 was found, by one of the early explorers, frozen fast by one leg, as it sat on its eggs, in August. 

 On the north part of Nova Zenibla, Barents found some Fulmars nesting upon a piece of ice covered 

 with a little earth. 



In the Cruise of the Corwin (p. 113), I state that "as we approached Ounalaska in Sep- 

 tember, large numbers of darkplumaged Fulmars were also seen in company with the common 

 species [roclgersi), but then, as before, it was impossible to secure specimens. The intensity of the 

 dai-k coloring in many of these specimens seemed to preclude the idea of their being referable to 

 Rodgers's Fulmar." A number of these dark birds were also seen north of Bering Straits ou two 

 occasions. As iJr. Stejneger has already suggested, t think these birds may be safely referred to 

 his recently described form. 



Turner records these bii'ds as rare ou the Near Islands, occurring most frequently ou Semichi, 

 and this record, with my observations, as noted, covers all the information at hand concerning the 

 presence of the form in Alaska. 



On the Commander Islands it breeds iu the greatest abundance on high clift's and promontories 

 rising from the sea. The eggs are dull-white. Ou these islands Stejneger found both a dark and 

 a white phase, the latter being fiir less numerous. 



FuLMARUS GLACIALIS RoDGER.sii (Cass.). Eodgers's Fulmar. 



The type of this form was secured iu the North Pacific by Stimpson, during Eodgers's Expedi- 

 tion into that region. 



All of the Bering Sea islands situated ofi'shore and north of the Aleutian chain are frequented 

 by these Fulmars during the breeding season. During the summer of 1877 they were found very 

 common north of the Aleutian Islands and about the Fur Seal group. As we neared the western 

 shore of Bering Sea and came into shallow water the Fulmars disappeared, and during the four 

 years passed at Saint Michaels only a single specimen was taken. This was secured on October 

 15, 1879, and measured 17.50 inches in length by 4:1 inches in extent. The bill was of a varying 

 shade of greenish-yellow and bluish-green ; the iris very dark hazel ; feet and tarsus livid bluish. 



During the summer of 1881 we found this Fulmar very numerous in Bering Straits and about 

 Saint Lawrence Island and the west coast of the sea. North of the straits they were also found 

 abundant along the Siberian coast and northward, but rare ou any part of the Alaskan shore. 

 They were common off Herald Island, where they were breeding in August, and also off the south 

 shore of Wrangel Island. 



The flight of these birds, like that of all their kindred, is full of grace and buoyancy, and the 

 birds form almost the only oliject of interest on a large part of their range. Their wandering 

 habits lead them from one place to another, so that on some of our passages through the straits 

 they were abundant, on others they were very scarce. 



The food of this bird consists of the small fragments of animal matter the surface of the sea 

 affords. They gather about a whale's carcass, and drink the large globules of oil which cover the 

 sea, sometimes for miles, about a decaying cetacean. In Plover Bay, Siberia, on one occasion, 

 we noticed the oil thus floating about iu the morning, and in the afternoon a Fulmar was shot from 

 which ran a considerable quantity of putrid oil when the bird was taken up by the feet. 



They rarely follow vessels for any length of time, although they gather about any food thrown 

 ovei'board, if they happen to bo near, and quarrel over it. 



Upon the Fur Seal Islands Mr. Elliott found these Fulmars breeding, and tells us that they are 

 the only species of the petrel kind found about this group. They reach these islands very early iu 



