224 
Northern News. 
forming the staple food for the winter: I am told that the 
flesh of a young Fulmar tastes like chicken, but the St. Kildan 
palate has been educated for centuries, and it is open to 
doubt whether the average man would take to such fare very 
kindly. To us the bird is interesting as particularly strong 
and graceful on the wing, but otherwise of no special use. 
It is a voracious feeder, the St. Kildans saying that it was most 
partial to the flesh of a stranded whale, and many have been 
found dead in the herring nets off the Norfolk coast. Seton 
gives the derivation of the name variously as Fyl-mar (Norse) 
— the vomiting man, or Ful-mar= stinking maw, a name to 
which the peculiar odour of the oil which the bird ejects at 
intruders richly entitles it. In St. Kilda it occupies all the 
ground which the Herring Gull would possess were it estab- 
lished there, and has apparently driven out all other gulls, 
which are represented by an odd pair of Great Black Backed 
Lesser Black Backed and Herring Gulls here and there, except 
the Kittiwake, the breeding ground of which does not clash 
with its own. The St. Kildans destroy the eggs of the Herring 
Gull as our own cliff -climbers do, as they say it is a robber. 
The Fulmar prefers a grassy slope, and is not partial to the 
overhung rocky shelves frequented by the Kittiwake, though 
occasionally its egg may be found on the bare rock. In a dry 
situation it makes no nest, but if the ground be damp, a little 
dry grass is used. If the one egg is taken, no second is laid 
during the season. I found about 25 per cent of the eggs 
examined on the outlying stacs to be addled, as if the birds 
were getting old and past laying fertile eggs. The St. Kildans 
are very particular about leaving the egg undisturbed, 
though they snare one bird off the nest, as they say that the 
other parent will complete the incubation and rear the chick. 
: o : 
Part II'. of The Outline of Science contains ‘ Psychic Science/ by Sir 
Oliver Lodge, and ‘ Wonders of Plant Life.’ Both are well illustrated. 
The honorary degree of D.Sc. has been conferred by the Leeds 
University upon Sir Richard Gregory, editor of Nature, and Sir Charles 
Sherrington, President of the Royal Society and President-Elect of the 
British Association. 
Part 33 of Buckman’s ‘ Type Ammonites ’ contains 16 plates, on 
one of which is figured Ammonites gowerianus Leckonby, from Scar- 
borough, which is now described as ‘ Galilaeites indigestus nov. Pro- 
planulitan, oftimus ; Holotype.’ 
A third edition of ‘ A Guide to the Fossil Remains of Man in the 
Department of Geology and Palaeontology in the British Museum (Natural 
History)/ by A. Smith Woodward, has appeared. It contains a large 
number of valuable illustrations, and is sold at 6d. 
Bart IV. of H. Kirke Swann’s new edition of A Synopsis of the 
Accipitres (diurnal Birds of Prey) ; Microhierax to Pandion, has, been 
issued (Wheldon & Wesley, pp. 179-233, 6/-). It brings the work up 
to the end of 1920. We should like to commend this useful book of 
reference. 
Naturalist 
