OPE HISTORIES OP NORTH AMKRICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 45 



rattling down from above, any one of which was sufficient to destroy life 

 should it have struck me, is not a sensation to be expressed adequately by 

 language; and, after having passed through the ordeal, I came to the surface 

 perfectly satisfied with what I had called the improvidence of the Aleuts. 

 They have quite sufficient excuse in my mind to be content with as few 

 fulmar eggs as possible. The lupus, laying so early as the 1st of June, is 

 the only rival that the cormorant has with reference to early incubation. 



Eggs. — Like other fulmars this species lays but one egg, which is 

 said to be more elongated than those of other species and somewhat 

 rougher. I can not find any constant difference between the eggs 

 of this so-called species and those of the Pacific fulmar, though the 

 eggs of both seem to average smaller than those of the Atlantic 

 bird. 



The measurements of 16 eggs, supposed to be rodgersi^ average 

 72.8 by 49 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 

 77.2 by 50, 75.2 by 51, 68 by 47.2, and 70.2 by 45 millimeters. 



Plujnages-^Mr. Elliott ( 1880) says: 



The chick comes out a perfect pufCball of white down, and gains its first 

 plumage in about six weeks. It is dull, gray-black at first, but by the end of 

 the season it becomes like the parents in coloration, only much darker on the 

 back and scapularies. 



This statement is somewhat at variance with my experience, for 

 specimens of young fulmars, collected by our expedition on St. 

 Matthew Island on September 15, 1911, show the molt from the 

 white natal down directly into a light-colored plumage resembling 

 the adult. Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) mentions seeing young birds in 

 both light and dark stages of plumages in September and October, 

 but I am inclined to think that these represented light and dark 

 phases, in spite of the fact that this species is said to have no dark 

 phase. There is much yet to be learned about the molts and plum- 

 ages of the fulmars, and large series of birds have yet to be collected 

 and studied before these can be understood and before the validity 

 of this and other forms can be definitely established. I very much 

 doubt if Fidmarus rodgersi will finally prove to be, even subspecifi- 

 cally, distinct from Fuhnarus glaciaUs. 



Food. — The food of this and other fulmars consists of whatever 

 fragments of animal food can be picked up on the surface of the sea ; 

 it shows a decided preference for oily substances. 



Doctor Nelson (1887) says: 



They gather about a whale 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 in the morning, 

 and In tfie afternoon a fulmar was shot from which ran a considerable quantity 

 of putrid oil when the bird was taken up by the feet. 



Wherever a walrus or other sea animal is killed the fulmars will 

 congregate and gather up blood, grease, and floating fragments of 



