THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL'AND TRANSACTIONS. [November 5, 1870. 
U74« 
receive a hearty -welcome, and that everything would 
he done for the convenience and gratification of its mem¬ 
bers. 
Mr. Mackay cordially seconded his friend Mr. Bail- 
don’s representation of the feeling of the chemists of 
Edinburgh. 
The President expressed his sense of the honour done 
to the Conference by the invitations now received, and 
stated that, in accordance with usual custom, the decision 
upon the place of meeting would for this year be postponed 
until a final meeting, to be held on the following Tues¬ 
day. 
The Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis ) and 
Fulmar Oil. 
BY EDWARD C. C. STANEORD, F.C.S. 
In the parish of Harris, Inverness-shire, nearly 200 
miles from Inverness, and about forty-five miles west 
of the nearest point in North Uist, 57° 50' N. lat. and 
8° 3 o' W. long., is situated perhaps the most remarkable, 
■certainly the loneliest, little village in Great Britain. 
“St. Hilda’s lonely isle ” is seldom reached by stran¬ 
gers, and I therefore record briefly some impressions 
derived from a recent visit. There are several islands, 
-one of which only, the south or main island, is inha¬ 
bited. 
Seen from North Uist on a very clear day, the main 
island has exactly the appearance of an enormous whale 
on the horizon, and the north islands look like a huge 
.sea-fortress with a tower on each side. 
The north island, or island of Boreray, with its sur¬ 
roundings, is perhaps the boldest. We sighted this 
island in the early morning looming through a dense 
mist, and quite close to the vessel. As the mist sud¬ 
denly cleared away, a startling scene presented itself. A 
perpendicular rock, some 1000 feet in height sheer out 
■of the Atlantic, towered above our heads. Its face, 
covered with lichens of every variety of colour, was 
gorgeously illuminated by the rising sun. It was 
flanked by two enormous rocky pillars 800 to 900 feet in 
height, one of which is beyond the perpendicular. This 
rock is an extraordinary sight; it is perfectly white from 
sea-line to summit, being completely covered with the 
White eggs, droppings and feathers of an innumerable 
family of Solan geese, which are said to keep this rock 
entirely to themselves. We astonished the winged in¬ 
habitants by a cannon-shot, but they repaid the astonish¬ 
ment with interest, for we were unprepared for the 
•extraordinary effect of the myriads of wings which im¬ 
mediately hovered over and around us, and turned day 
into night. 
St. Hilda proper lies about three miles south of Bore- 
ray. It may be described as a precipitous mountain 
ridge, which in some parts falls sheer into the sea, with 
enormous precipices some 1500 feet high. It is three 
miles long and two miles in its extreme breadth. It lies 
501 miles due west of Schillay Island in the Sound of 
Harris. The formation is marked in Nicholl’s geologi¬ 
cal map as greenstone with syenite veins. On the south¬ 
east side the hill slopes down to a small open bay much 
exposed, and the landing is difficult. On this side of 
the hill the village is situated. About thirty houses, 
well built and better roofed than is usual in the West 
Highlands, are occupied by about seventy inhabitants. 
The population does not increase, the infant mortality is 
large, and said to be peculiar to the island. 
It is somewhat remarkable that the inhabitants are 
not fishermen, but are all farmers and birdcatchers. 
Until quite recently none of the men knew how to fish. 
The staple food of the island is a bird called the fulmar, 
which forms the subject of this notice. 
This bird is a species of petrel, the Fulmar glacialis , or 
Procellaria glacialis of Linnaeus, the Fulmar petrel of 
Buffon, belonging to the family of Frocellariecc , order 
Nat at ores. At a distance the bird might be mistaken 
for a gull, which it resembles in size and colour; it is 
more nearly allied, however, to the albatross, which it 
resembles in its remarkable bill and its vomiting oil 
when attacked. The head, neck and lower parts are 
pure white, the wings and back bluish-ash, and the bill 
bright yellow. The bill is stout and thick, the upper 
mandible considerably hooked at the tip, where it is also 
dilated and sulcated ; the lower mandible is straight and 
slightly truncated. The nostrils are united in a single 
tube. A sharp claw on the legs takes the place of a 
hind toe. The flight of the bird is very beautiful, and 
it has a remarkably graceful movement of the head. 
The fulmar inhabits Polar regions, and, so far as I can 
ascertain, is unknown in any other of the outer Hebrides, 
and is found only on St. Hilda. It breeds enormously 
there in the rocks, laying a single large white egg, and 
the young is fed by the oily matter disgorged by the 
parents. 
The strong bill enables them to extract oily matter, by 
perforating the skin of dead seals or whales. 
In Newfoundland they feed largely on the codfish 
offal, and probably they are experienced fishers every¬ 
where. 
The method of catching these birds is peculiar to 
St. Kilda; the men may well call themselves bird- 
catchers, for assuredly there are none like them. The 
process seems simple enough, but the awful danger must 
be seen to be appreciated; indeed, the climbing pro¬ 
pensities of these men would astonish any member of 
the Alpine Club. 
Hanging on a rope (often made of heather) the bird- 
catcher descends the fearful precipices, armed with a 
sort of fishing-rod, having a slip noose at the end. This 
he dexterously throws over the head of the bird, which 
is sitting on a ledge of the rock beneath him, and hauls 
him up. He then dips the bird’s beak into a small 
leather bag suspended to his waist, and there the oil is 
vomited. The bird is then killed and eaten as food, 
the feathers and the oil forming the two articles of ex¬ 
port. Beds made of the feathers are said never to har¬ 
bour insects, but it is alleged also that they are difficult 
to keep dry. 
The oil is a good deal mixed with a rougher sort from 
Solan geese, and realizes a poor price as an ordinary 
rough fish-oil. The sample I exhibit is genuine. It is 
of a clear, dark, slightly reddish sherry-colour, and has 
a powerful and peculiar odour,—an odour of which the 
whole island and all the inhabitants smell. It is cer¬ 
tainly a fish-oil, and it possesses nearly all the properties 
of cod-liver oil. 
Its specific gravity is midway between cod-liver and 
sperm. 
Fulmar Oil, sp. gr. . . . *902 
Cod-liver, light „ . . . . *924 
„ brown,, .... *929 
Sperm Oil ,,.... *875 
It is soluble in ether. Cold alcohol dissolves less than 
1 per cent, and hot alcohol 3 per cent. 
. Treated with a drop of oil of vitriol, it produces pre¬ 
cisely the same coloured reactions as cod-liver oil, which, 
if the generally-received views be correct, would show 
it to be a liver-oil. 
It contains a very faint trace of iodine. 
Heated with oil of vitriol and excess of potash it gives 
off a strong odour of oil of rose. 
Saponified with soda, the soap retains the peculiar 
odour, and yields a tolerably fluid fatty acid on acidify¬ 
ing the solution. 
I shall be glad if this short notice of fulmar oil will 
induce any one to experiment with it for medicinal pur¬ 
poses. I have no doubt a good deal might be obtained, 
and a good market would be a boon to that isolated 
people. 
The specimen of fulmar exhibited, and which is 
offered to the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society, 
