384 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



for this purpose during the limited period in which it is 

 possible to take the young birds, This is the reason why 

 the natives are so particular that the old birds shall not 

 he disturbed on the main island during tbe nesting season, 

 so as to ensure that the harvest there shall be a good one; 

 but they do not scruple to snare the old birds on the nest 

 in the subsidiary islands, and in fact take hundreds of 

 them in that way up to the end of the period of incubation. 

 After the August harvest is over, no more Fulmars can 

 be got till the following spring, when the old birds can 

 again be snared on the nests, though occasionally in March 

 a few may be captured at night on the rocks. 



The immense majority of Fulmars at St. Kilda are of 

 the usual white-breasted form, but I saw a very few of the 

 grey type ; one of the latter, snared on the nest, was con- 

 siderably smaller than the common form. The vounff 

 Fulmar in first plumage (of which I had two specimens 

 sent me after I left the island) resembles the adult in 

 having the head, neck and under-parts pure white. It 

 differs from the adult, however, in having the general hue 

 of the back and upper part of wings of a uniform bluish- 

 grey (with the exception of the primaries and primary 

 coverts, which, as in the adult, are of a dusky slate colour) : 

 whereas in the adult many of the feathers forming the 

 different wing coverts have their outer webs shaded to a 

 variable extent with a light brown colour, which produces 

 an irregular shaped pattern on the wing, which is quite 

 conspicuous when the bird is in flight. 



