472 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
been observed at sea from Annan Water-foot westwards 
after tempestuous weather. A female was obtained on 
Roekcliffe Marsh, Cumberland, on February 9th, 1892,* 
and this fact is here quoted as strengthening Mr. Service's 
statement. But in view of the fact that the Fulmar Petrel 
is thoroughly oceanic in its habits and is seldom seen 
near shore except at its breeding-stations, unless driven in 
by severe storms, I feel compelled to employ square brackets 
for this species. It nests on St. Kilda, the Shetland 
Isles, the Faeroes, Iceland, Spitzbergen, Franz-Joseph Land, 
Greenland and north-east America ; and it may be briefly 
summarised as an inhabitant of " the Arctic and subarctic 
regions of the North Atlantic."!] 
[In the Annan Observer of November 19th, 1872, we find 
the following statement : " Mr. Muir, taxidermist, of 
Ecclefechan, preserved and stuffed last winter the Wandering 
Albatross, a very rare bird, which was shot on the Solway 
Coast." The Wandering Albatross {Diomedea exulans) is 
found throughout the Southern Ocean, seldom occurring 
northward of 30° south, { and has never been recorded in 
Great Britain. The Black-browed Albatross (D. melanophrys) 
has, however, been obtained in Cambridgeshire (July 9th, 
1897), and is believed to have been seen by Mr. J. A. Harvie- 
Brown off the Orkneys on June 18th, 1894.§ In any case, 
this local record of a supposed Albatross is too vague to 
enable one to say to what species the bird may have 
belonged that Mr. Muir stuffed. Sailors often bring back 
from their voyages in the Southern Ocean the feet of these 
birds as tobacco pouches and their beaks as curios ; and 
it is possible that one more thorough in his ways brought 
back a whole skin, around which a very improbable story 
has been woven.] 
* Fauna of Lakeland, 1892, p. 454, 
t List of British Birds, B.O.U., 1883, p. 199. 
+ Diet. Birds, 1893-1896, p. 8. 
§ Man. Brit. Birds, 1899, pp. 753, 754. 
