FULMAR. 
PJtOCELLARIA GLACIALIS. 
I MUCH regret that my knowledge of St. Kilda, derived from personal observation, consists merely of 
a somewhat hazy idea of the jagged outline of those rocky islets, viewed occasionally, as the sun 
disappeared in the Western Ocean, from the summit of one or two of the hills in the Outer Hebrides. 
Wind and weather, combined with other circumstances, having frustrated all my endeavours to reach the 
islands, I am unable to give the slightest information concerning the breeding-habits of this interesting 
species. 
With the exception of a single specimen picked up in a disabled condition on the shore of the 
Firth of Forth in November 18G3, I have met with the Fulmar only along the coast of Norfolk and 
in the North Sea. After the disastrous October gales in 1879 numbers were seen by the crews of 
the herring-boats and trawlers between twenty and thirty miles off the land. That their occurrence 
off this portion of the east coast is somewhat unusual, may be judged from the fact that the master of 
one of the luggers (an old gunner, and well acquainted with all sea-fowl) assured me that it was forty 
years since he had seen a Fulmar, when, as a “ younker,” he captured one in the “ deidle.” Many 
must have perished from the continued buffetings of the storms, as in addition to several reported to have 
been observed lying among the weed washed up on the shore, I met with two or three dead on the beach 
near Yarmouth Harbour, and noticed several others floating on the water outside tlie sands; in every 
instance these birds were dark in colouring, differing considerably from those seen on wing, the latter 
being invariably brightly tinted. The Fulmar found disabled on the shore of the Forth in 1863 was 
also exceedingly dusky, and proved to be the only one in that state of plumage that I met with alive. I 
had aRvays imagined the dark birds to be immature, havdng almost doubted the assertions of a Highlander 
who informed me that when the young w^ere fit to leave the nest they corresponded in colour with the 
adults. The statement, however, in the latest edition of Yarrell, that the young exhibiting down are white- 
breasted and similar in general tone of plumage to their parents, entirely upsets my conjecture, and even 
during the past year further information confirming this assertion has been received. As I am unable to 
form an opinion based on personal observation, I must leave to those who have met with better opportunities 
for examining the birds in a living state to decide whether the dark forms are merely a variety or a species. 
This same question appears to have puzzled most writers, as they tell us little on the subject. 
On Sunday, the 2nd of November, 1879, I watched a light-plumaged bird flying along tlie shore 
at Y'armouth ; sw^eeping round in large circles while holding a course towards the south, it occasionally 
passed over the sands as far as the drive, apparently utterly regardless of the trafiic. On tlie 8th, another 
in similar plumage was observed, about thirty miles off the land, darting down among a swarm of Gulls 
collected round one of the luggers; some fish-liver having been thrown overboard from the steamboat, 
the patch of oil at once attracted its attention, and with a rapid swoop the stranger w^as over the spot. 
