THE FULMAR. 405 
Martin Martin’s still earlier account, verified by a specimen 
sent thence to Reaumur’s Museum in Paris.* 
The range of the species is vast, covering nearly the whole 
Northern Atlantic, even to the verge of the fixed Polar ice, and 
as far as the open sea will lead them, or, more definitely, and 
according to absolute record, as far as 85° 5” N. lat., as recorded 
by Collett and Nansen. These writers tell us: ‘‘ The last 
Fulmarus glacialis of this year was seen on Sept. 14th, and was 
the last bird observed that autumn. On that day the ‘ Fram’ 
was in 85° 5” N., and this is the highest latitude in which birds 
have ever been known to be observed.’’t 
Southward the species ranges as far as the Mediterranean 
(‘Yarrell,’ loc. cit.), and, as we have just shown, to 45° N. lat. on 
the European side, and to 41°, or further south, on the North 
American side. 
We cannot definitely fix what may be the range of individual 
birds of the species, nor even that of the inhabitants of any one 
colony, either singly or in a body; but we may be allowed to 
believe that the range is dependent upon the necessities of the 
pioneers in the earliest stages of the movement. 
The flight of the Fulmar is for the most part low and gliding 
over the trough and billow, the birds rarely ascending to any 
marked elevation when far out at sea. Their vision is therefore 
limited, and their horizon circumscribed. Whilst nearly all 
previous writers speak of these birds as a purely oceanic species, 
and record that before the occupation of the later nesting places 
the birds were seen principally by fishermen out at sea, and 
some miles removed from the nearest land—as will be gathered 
further on in this article—such is not to-day so conspicuous a 
* *Ornithologia sive Synopsis Methodica,’ &c., MDccLx. Vol vi. Parisiis, 
MDCCLX., p. 143, t. 12, f.2. (The copy now in my possession belonged to the 
late Prof. Wm. Macgillivray, and bears his beautiful sign-manual upon each 
illuminated title-page of the six volumes. The text is in double column, in 
Latin and French, and the full title-pages have two printed strips of paper 
pasted on, bearing the legend, ‘‘ Monsieur Challan, Procureur du Roi,” on 
one line, and ‘‘A Meulan-sur-Seine.”) The passage referred to is at p. 145, 
and the last sentence of the article, ‘‘Il a été envoyé de l’Isle 8. Kilda a 
M. de Reaumur par Milord Morton.” 
+ ‘Account of the Birds of the Fram Expedition,’ Christiania. London, 
1899, p. 50. 
