NOTES AND QUERIES. 407 



they took possession, and have since frequented that island as a breeding 

 station every summer. It thus appears what a slight cause will sometimes 

 induce birds to change their breeding haunts. In this instance a sufficient 

 supply of food occurring just at the breeding season in the vicinity of 

 suitable cliffs caused the Fulmars to remain that summer, and probably the 

 young birds which were reared there that season returned the following 

 one, and have now with their own progeny become the regular inhabitants 

 of this Shetland colony. Although breeding on St. Kilda and Foula, the 

 Fulmar very rarely visits the Irish coasts, and then only when driven south 

 by a continuance of northerly gales. A few weakly, half-starved birds have 

 occasionally been cast up dead by the surf on our north-west coast, generally 

 in the months of October and November. Up to the date of the publication 

 of Thompson's ' Birds of Ireland ' only three specimens of this bird had been 

 obtained, or at least only that number of which Thompson had any authentic 

 record as Irish. The first obtained was shot by Capt. Hungerford on Inchy- 

 derry Island, Clonakilty Bay, Cork, in 1832; a second was shot by the 

 Rev. Joseph Stopford at Castlefreke, also on the south coast of Cork, in 

 October, 1845 ; and the third was shot on the North Strand, Dublin Bay, 

 on the 1st January, 1846. Such was all that Thompson knew of the 

 occurrence of the Fulmar on the Irish coast; and I have known nothing of 

 its appearance anywhere else until the 24th January, 1857, when I found 

 one lying dead on the Moyview shores, having drifted in with the tide of the 

 night before from Killala Bay. This bird was in such fresh and good 

 condition that I sent it to my old friend the late Dr. J. R. Harvey, of Cork, 

 for his fine collection of native birds. The next occasion of my meeting 

 with this bird was on the 24th October, 1862, when I visited the Enniscrone 

 sands (which face the open bay, separating it from the estuary of the Moy), 

 to search for any storm-driven birds that might be thrown ashore by the 

 surf, from the effects of the northerly gale that had been blowing for two 

 days. As I walked along the edge of the water, I came upon a young and 

 an old Puffin, the latter barely alive, and while examining it, my attention 

 was attracted by a Great Black-backed Gull some distance off, dragging and 

 trying to tear something that was lying partly in the water, and had just 

 been cast ashore by the surf. On reaching the place I found a Fulmar, in 

 a most wretched condition, completely water-soaked, and so weak as not to 

 be able to stand : as it died very shortly after, I put it into my bag. Soon 

 afterwards I saw the Black-back, a couple of hundred yards off, watching 

 some object that had just been cast ashore by the surf, and that he was 

 evidently afraid to attack. Hastening up to the place, I found a second 

 Fulmar just come ashore, and as miserable as the first, except that it was 

 not so weak, being able to stand and walk a little, aud deter the gull from 

 attacking it. These two birds, when the sand was washed out of their 

 feathers and the plumage dried, made beautiful specimens, which I 



