406 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
trait in their behaviour, because many are now to be seen quite 
in more or less land-locked seas, and close round their nesting 
sites—as, for instance, in the narrow Sound of Sleat, in the 
waterways of the Outer Hebrides, and the North and South 
Minches between the Outer Hebrides and the coast of the main- 
land of Scotland. And it may well be worth mentioning here 
that a remarkable exception to the rule of previous circumscribed 
horizon—if failure of the birds to colonize be due to that 
fact—is that the long-tenanted cliffs of St. Kilda and the 
high cliffs of Mingulay and Barra Head are clearly within view 
of one another; but that it has not been till within quite recent 
years that Fulmar Petrels have colonized the latter. We in- 
stance this exception to illustrate the fact that pressure from the 
over-populated cliffs of the St. Kilda group did not—if the 
chronology can be trusted, which we uphold it can be—cause 
great expansion in a southerly direction from our solitary Fulmar 
station, or otherwise it has been long delayed. 
Of the great and general abundance of the species it may not 
be out of place to speak here. This may best be done from the 
records of previous observers. Thus, twenty thousand to thirty 
thousand birds are taken annually on the Westmannjar Isles of 
Iceland.* In the island of Jan Mayen the species breeds in 
thousands.+ After a north-west hurricane the mortality of 
Fulmars on that inhospitable rock was vast. The birds return 
to the cliffs at Jan Mayen with every south wind, and as late as 
September 19th, “‘ nearly as numerously as in summer, but dis- 
appeared with every north wind.’’} 
Another point is, if any real specific difference exists between 
the more Arctic form and the more abundant southern form, it 
is here worthy of notice that it is only in autumn or the end of 
September that the ‘‘ grey-coloured young” (sic) were seen 
frequenting Jan Mayen. 
Following up the argument regarding a great general move- 
ment southwards, it may be well to speak here of these two 
supposed forms or so-called subspecies. Personally, however, 
* Yarrell, ‘ British Birds,’ ed. iv. vol. iv. p. 6. 
+ “ Vogel von Jan Mayen,” translation; Zool. 1890 (Jan. and Feb.), by 
Dr. F. Fischer and August von Pelzeln. 
+ Yarrell (loc. cit.). 
