F U L M A R .
mOCELLARIA GLACIAJAS.
I MUCH regret that my knowledge or St. Kilda, derived from personal observation, consists merely of
a somewhat hazy idea of the jagged outline of those rocky Wots, 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
Firlh of Forth in November 1S03, I have met with the Fulmar only along the coast of Norfolk and
in the North Sen. After the disastrous October gales in 1H7!> 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 nil sea-fowl) assured me that it was forty
years since be had seen a Fulmar, when, as a " jounker," he captured one iu the " deidle." Many
must have perished from the continued bull'etiiigs 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 lloating on the water outside the sands; in every
instance these birds were dark in colouring, ditl'cring considerably from those seen on wing, the latter
being invariably brightly tinted. The Fulmar found disabled on the shore of the Forth iu 1S03 was
also exceedingly dusky, and proved to be the only one in that state of plumage that I met with alive. I
had always imagined the dark birds fo be immature, having almost doubted the assertions of a Highbinder
who informed me that when the young were fit to leave the nest they corresponded in colour with the
adults. The statement, however, in the latest edition of Yarrcll. that the young exhibiting down are whitebreasted
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 baaed on personal observation, I must leave to those who have met with better opportunities
for examining the birds in a living state to dceide 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, 1S79, I watched a light-piuiuaged bird flying along the shore
nl Yarmouth; sweeping 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 traffic. On the 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 natch of oil at unco attracted its attention, and with a ranid swoon the stranger was over the snot.