5 2 4 
TUBE-NOSED BIRDS. 
back, as well as the wing-coverts, have paler greyish margins. The beak is yellowish 
horn-colour; and the legs and feet are greyish black. 
Commonly known to sailors by the name of nelly, break - bones, or 
stinker, the giant petrel is widely distributed over the temperate and high 
southern latitudes, occasionally wandering to a considerable distance north of the 
Equator, and in power of flight is fully equal to the albatrosses. In habits it differs 
considerably from the latter, subsisting chiefly on the blubber and flesh of dead 
seals and whales, as well as the bodies of other birds. Moseley, who compares it in 
these respects to a vulture, writes that in Kerguelen, this petrel “ soars all day 
along the coast on the look-out for food. No sooner is an animal killed than 
numbers appear as if by magic, and the birds are evidently well acquainted with 
the usual proceedings of the sealers—who kill the sea-elephant, take off the skin 
and blubber, and leave the carcase. They settled down here all round in groups 
at a short distance, a dozen or so together, to wait, and began fighting amongst 
themselves, as if to settle which was to have first bite.” When gorged, they are 
quite unable to fly; and, like other members of the family, if disturbed they have 
an unpleasant habit of disgorging an ill-smelling oily fluid. These birds breed on 
Kerguelen and Prince Edward’s Island, where they lay a single, dirty, white egg 
in a natural hollow of the ground. The newly-hatched young are covered with a 
long grey down; and later on the nestlings, when approached, are stated to squirt 
from their nostrils an oily fluid to a distance of six or eight feet, the old birds re¬ 
maining a short distance away. 
In the Arctic regions and other parts of the Northern Hemi¬ 
sphere, the place of the giant petrel is taken by the gull-like fulmar 
(Fulmarus glacialis), which is likewise the only well-defined representative of its 
genus. Of much smaller size than the giant petrel, the fulmar differs by the beak 
being inferior in length to the metatarsus, and the proportionately shorter and 
stouter nasal tubes, in which the septum between the two nostrils extends to within 
a short distance of the orifice; the tail-feathers, moreover, are either twelve or 
fourteen in number. The fulmar measures about 19 inches in length, and displays 
great variation as regards colour. In the typical form, however, the head and neck 
are white, most of the upper-parts, as well as the tail-feathers, pearl-grey, the 
primaries slaty grey, and the breast and under-parts white. The iris is dark 
brown, the beak yellow at the tip, with yellowish white sides, and a greenish tinge 
at the base above, while the legs and feet are pale grey. A grey phase is also 
commonly met with, in which the head and neck, as well as the greater portion 
of both the upper and under-parts are ashy brown, with the back and wings 
somewhat darker than the rest. The fulmar breeds in the boreal regions of both 
hemispheres; but some authorities consider that in the North Pacific and Behring Sea 
it is replaced by two distinct species. In autumn and winter, the fulmar is a by 
no means uncommon, although probably involuntary visitor to the southern shores 
of Britain, and has been recorded as far south as the Mediterranean. 
In habits, the fulmar is very like its larger cousin, nesting in hollows in the 
ground, instead of in deep burrows like the shearwaters, and feeding largely on 
whale-blubber and refuse. Scoresby writes that these petrels “ are remarkably 
easy and swift on the wing, flying to windward in the highest storms, and resting 
Fulmar Petrel. 
