402 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
The present writer does not consider it necessary to go far 
back for evidence of this increase, 2. e. to consult the evidences 
adduced by the very earliest. Arctic voyagers. For present 
purposes it seems sufficient to trace the advances from the more 
important localities in Arctic Seas, and, supplementary to that, 
those, if any, from our oldest and only previously recorded and 
much further southern locality of St. Kilda. It is satisfactory 
to find the existence of this far southern locality, and that we 
have records dating back for at least two hundred and fifty 
years.* 
Another cause has been assigned, viz. the comparatively 
recent development of the Whale fishery, and certainly it seems 
to be favoured by the evidence of Whale-fishing accounts in the 
past. Pennant says: ‘“‘ The Whales are often discovered at sea 
by the multitudes of Mallemucks flying, and that, when one of 
the former is wounded, prodigious numbers follow its bloody 
track.”’ 
But the present writer may at once say that the influence of 
that industry does not seem to him to have had any really 
extensive sway over their dispersal, unless possibly in the very 
earliest and minor stages of the procedure. It is true that 
Bear Island, lat. 75° 30’ N. and long. 15° E., is now—a.p. 1911— 
much more densely populated by these birds than in the earlier 
times to which I have referred, and this has been credited to 
the influence exerted by the whaling operations carried on by 
the Norwegians on the north coast of Finmark. Dr. W. Bruce 
is of the opinion that these operations did have something to do 
with the increase at Bear Island, as offering an additional in- 
ducement to the birds to further colonize the place. While 
that may appear to be quite within the possibilities, we cannot 
compare its force with the natural influence exerted by over- 
* «A Late Voyage to St. Kilda,’ &c., by M. Martin Gent (London, &c.), 
Mpcxcvill. It cannot be affirmed that we have any true and reliable record 
of the species having bred on the South Isles of Barra of the Outer 
Hebrides, all endeavours to trace a reliable and scientific relation of this as 
a fact having failed, though it has been included and quoted as an old-time 
British nesting haunt. We reserve statistics for later treatment under the 
several localities, and only use the general fact here to show how suitable 
cliffs may not have been within the ken of the ocean-loving birds which 
rarely came near the land except in their nesting season; and, on the other 
hand, to give a reason for the exception. This we endeavour to explain later 
when treating more directly of the British dispersal in recent years. 
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