536 



Young (Disco) . General colour dull ashy grey with a bluish tinge, the underparts paler, the upper parts 

 darker and more blue, most of the feathers on the back margined with dull brownish ash ; quills as in 

 the adult. 



Obs. "By some naturalists the dark grey bird has been looked on as distinct ; but it would certainly seem to 

 be only the young. Captain Feilden writes to me as follows : — " I have no doubt in my mind that the 

 dark-coloured individuals are the young birds. In those that I have examined, the bill was smaller 

 than in typical adult individuals of Fulmarus glacialis. Frequently I have captured Fulmars with a 

 baited hook and line let out over the taffrail ; and though the lighter and darker birds were equally 

 numerous, I never saw one of the latter captured by this means, the lighter-coloured and, as I imagine, 

 older birds invariably driving off the dark individuals before they could seize the bait/' Professor 

 Malmgren, who had ample opportunities of observing the present species in Spitzbergen, also says that 

 he can positively state that the dark is the immature plumage, and adds that he saw birds in inter- 

 mediate plumage, between the dark and the light, everywhere. Von Heuglin states (J. f. O. 1871, 

 p. 206) that a pure white variety was obtained from Helis-sound, in East Spitzbergen, and adds that 

 this form occurs now and then in Iceland. 



The present species inhabits the oceans which wash the shores of Northern Europe and America, 

 breeding in the high north, and straggling further south in the winter season. In Great Britain 

 it is only known as a very rare straggler, and does not breed in any part of the United Kingdom, 

 except on the islands off the coasts of Scotland, especially on St. Kilda, where it is very numerous 

 during the nesting-season. Yarrell says that it has been sometimes, but not often, shot on 

 the coast of Wales, and has been obtained in Cornwall. One was obtained in Essex ; and it 

 has been occasionally shot or caught in Yarmouth Roads. Mr. Cordeaux writes (Birds of the 

 Humber District, p. 210), the present species " has been obtained on several occasions during 

 the last ten years on our east coast, but always, like so many ocean wanderers, in the autumn 

 or winter months. One, a mature male, sent to Mr. Boulton in 1864, was killed on the 29th of 

 October in that year on board a trawler off Flamborough Head (Zoologist, 1864, p. 9365). In 

 November 1868, Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., had four sent him, each in the flesh, by Mr. Roberts, 

 of Scarborough ; they were taken on board a fishing-yawl at sea, the men catching some with 

 hooks, others by hand on the deck of the vessel as they were devouring the herrings. Mr. Gurney 

 states that the Flamborough fishermen had that season seen scores of them off the coast about 

 thirty miles from land. One in my possession, a storm-driven bird, was killed by a groom on 

 the 18th of October 1867, in a turnip-field at Barnoldby-le-Beck ; it was unwounded, but appa- 

 rently incapable of rising from the land. The stomachs of Fulmar Petrels shot off this coast, 

 examined by myself and Mr. Gurney, have contained the jaws of cuttlefish, as well as numbers 

 of small globular semiopaque substances, apparently the air-bladders of some species of Algae." 

 " Off the coasts of Northumberland and Durham," according to Mr. J. Hancock (B. of North. & 

 Durh. p. 132), it is "but a rare casual visitant. Many years ago I found a specimen washed up 

 on Whitley Sands. Another example in my collection was picked up alive on the sands near 

 Whitburn, on the 11th of October 1850; it was in a sickly condition, but not wounded. A 

 second specimen was found dead in the same locality, March 1869 ; and an example, now in 

 the collection of Mr. Raine, of Durham, was picked up dead on the sands at Bamborough, 

 November 1872." 



