FULMAR PETREL. 447 



been observed by Captain Sabine on the coast of Greenland. " Whilst 

 the ships," he says, " were detained by the ice in Jacob's Bay, in latitude 

 71°, from the 24th of June to the 3d of July, Fulmars were passing in a 

 continual stream to the northward, in numbers inferior only to the flight 

 of the Passenger Pigeon in America." While on my way to Labrador, 

 I was told that they bred on the Seal Islands off the entrance of the Bay 

 of Fundy. The egg, which is of a regular ovate form, with a smooth 

 brittle pure white shell, measures two inches and seven-eighths in length, 

 by two inches in breadth. 



My much esteemed friend Mr Selby, in his Illustrations of British 

 Ornithology, gives the following account of this species. " The steep and 

 rocky St Kilda, one of the western islands of Scotland, is the only locaUty 

 within the British dominions annually resorted to by the Fulmar, the rest 

 of the Scottish and our more southern coasts being rarely visited even by 

 stragglers. Upon St Kilda these birds are found in vast numbers during 

 the spring and summer months, breeding in the caverns and holes of the 

 rocks ; and, from the various uses to which the down, feathers, and oil of 

 the young are applied, contribute essentially to the comfort of the inhabi- 

 tants. They lay but one egg each, white, and of a large size, with a shell 

 of very brittle texture. The young are hatched about the middle of June, 

 and are fed with oil thrown up by the parents (the produce of the food 

 upon which they subsist), and, as soon as fledged, are eagerly sought for 

 by the natives, although often at the risk of life, in scaling the tremendous 

 and overhanging cliffs in which they nestle. Like most of the group, 

 these birds have the power of ejecting oil with much force through their 

 tubular nostrils, which is used as the principal mode of defence ; it be- 

 comes an essential point, therefore, that they should be taken and killed 

 by surprise, in order to prevent the loss of a liquid so requisite for the 

 comfort of the inhabitants, by supplying them with the necessary fuel for 

 their lamps. The Fulmar is of voracious appetite, feeding upon all sorts 

 of animal substance, particularly of an oily nature, such as the blubber of 

 whales, seals, &c. ; and for this purpose it follows in great numbers the 

 track of the whale vessels, and is so greedy of its favourite food, as to be 

 often seen alighting upon the wounded animal, when not quite dead, and 

 immediately proceeding to break the skin with its strong hooked bill, and 

 gorging itself with the blubber to repletion." 



The Rev. Mr ScoRKSBy, in his " Arctic Regions," vol. i. p. 528, gives 

 the following account of its habits as observed by him in the polar seas. 



