The Fulmar. 22 s 



fairly to the time for eggs laid about the middle of May hatching out. The 

 young remain in a helpless condition for many weeks. Indeed I question 

 whether the birds hatched at the beginning of June would leave their nests much 

 before the end of August. In 1895 I received four newly-skinned nestlings of 

 the Fulmar from St. Kilda on the 9th of August, birds which had been taken 

 after the first of the month. These were nearly full-sized nestlings, and their 

 wing quills were in course of development ; but three of the number were entirely 

 enveloped in nestling down, with the exception of the pinions. The fourth speci- 

 men had lost about one-third of its downy covering, and was feathering rapidly, 

 so that it would no doubt have flown a little earlier than its companions in mis- 

 fortune. 



Fulmars are squat balls of feathery down in early youth; but the outline 

 of an adult Fulmar poised upon some projecting pinnacle or crag is finely 

 curved, and very unlike the stuffed specimens of the Fulmar which are to be seen 

 in most museums. No doubt the Fulmar is most at home when sailing through 

 the air on widely out-stretched pinions ; but it is also a pretty bird when seen 

 floating in a ground swell. Mr. Trevor- Battye made some interesting observations 

 upon a Fulmar colony which exists in Eckman Bay, Spitsbergen. " Here," he 

 writes, " numbers of them are always on the water, and washing constantly. I 

 know of no bird that prolongs its bath as the Fulmar does ; and while this is 

 going on they are so engrossed as allow a boat's crew nose almost to touch them 

 before they move away." In the northern regions the Fulmar feeds largely on 

 the flesh of dead seals and cetacea ; hence such immersion of the plumage as Mr. 

 Trevor-Battye witnessed may well be needed to cleanse the feathers of the bird 

 from grease and dried gore. 



Another point which struck Mr. Trevor-Battye as novel was the cry of 

 the Fulmar, which he never heard on the wing, though he says that when 

 the Fulmar is at rest on the water it frequently utters a complacent croak. 

 I have only once heard what I supposed to be a Fulmar's cry. I was resting 

 upon the rocks on the side of the Dune, when suddenly a curious guttural croak 

 came speeding through the air, and, looking up, I saw a Fulmar passing over. 

 This was probably the note which Mr. John Young described to me as sounding 

 like " Kaka," twice repeated. Friderich says that the Fulmar, when pairing, 

 employs a cry which he syllables as " kekerek-i;" in the evening, and during the 

 night, another call-note is uttered, which he syllables as " wib, wib, ud ua." 

 Steineger states that he spent hours under the rookeries of the Fulmars of the 

 Commander Isles, " listening to their whinnying voice, and watching their high 

 and elegant flight in sailing out. and in and around the cracked rocks like bees 



Vot. VI. 2 K 



