PULMAR.
Being anxious to secure the bird as a specimen, I did not waste time in watching its actions, but arailed
myself of the first chance. .From the naturalist to whom it was sent for preservation I learned that
the stomach contained, in addition to some fatty matter, a good handful of greasy oakum; and, strange
to say, the manner in which the bird became possessed of this apparently unpalatable mouthful was
afterwards ascertained. The previous day, while conversing with the mnsu>r or one of the luggers (Henry
Thomas, alias "Gaby"1 ) , he promised, if we fell in with him while hauling his nets, to have the birds
well fed with fish, by which means a larger number would be collected round the boat, and a greater
chance afforded for observing or, if necessary, procuring specimens of Skuas or Fulmars. Though the
night had been clear, the morning at daybreak proved hazy, and a drifting rain setting in shortly after,
there was little chance of our making out any signals on boats at a distance. Before leaving the fleet it
was ascertained from the crew of a Yarmouth lugger who bad seen him shoot his nets that we were a few
miles to the south of the station he had taken. Early in tbo following week I learned from Thomas that
on the morning of the 8th he had seco no birds worth mentioning, with the exception of a few darkpi
timaged Skuas (young Pomatorhincs) nod one Fulmar; the latter, he stated, came close under the stern
of the boat, but though hovering round for a time, took no notice of the food thrown out. Happening,
however, himself to fling overlwarxl a piece of greasy oakum, with which he had been cleaning and oiling
some of the gear, the bird iminctllately dashed down, and seizing the unsavoury morsel in its beak, sailed
off towards the south. There eould be little doubt that the specimen I obtained was the same bird: as
near as we were able to judge, it was shot about half an hour after lieing lost sight of by my informant.
While in correspondence with Mr. Gunn of Norwich, to whom the bird had been sent for preservation, I was
furnished with the following notes referring to this specimen which he had taken down at the time:—"An
adult female, exceedingly fat, weight 1 lb. 9 or.., length 18J inches, extent of wings when open 11 inches,
the wing from carpal joint to tip of longest primary ll'J inches. Head pure white. The stomach contained a
piece o[ oakum and some lumps of fat ; the former hid been apparently thrown overboard from a vessel,
being saturated with grease, probably for machinery." Then referring to a dark-tinted bird picked up at sea,
and forwarded to him the same day, he adds:—"The other was also a female, hut a younger specimen." It
is evident from this remark that Mr. Guuu entertained the idea I then held, viz. that the dark-coloured birds
were the juveniles. During the early morning I had previously noticed a couple of light-pluuiaged Fulmars
flying south; these pa>sed together at the distance of two or three hundred yards, sailing round and
round, without paying the slightest attention to the clouds of Gulls hovering after a boat on which the
crew wen' shaking out and cleaning the nets. Shortly after daybreak a few dead Fulmars had been passed
floating on the water, and while steaming back towards the harbour during the aflernoon, we stopped and
lowered the boat to pick up two cir three lying in our course about twenty miles oil' the land. Though the
shades of colouring vuriel, all exhibited the dark stage of plumage, and had Bl ideally succumbed to the longcontinued
exposure to the force of the terrible gales that during the past month had swept over the North
Sen, causing death from exhaustion to thousands of even the hardiest sea-fowl while on the passage to their
winter-ipuirters. None hut those who had been afloat off our eastern coasts or observed the waifs us well as
the remnants of battered and decomposing carcasses cast up by the tide could credit the destruction dealt
out tn the feathered tribe. Since that date I have met with but one of this species; the bird was flying
towards the north, some miles outside the Cross Sands, in January lSb2, and paid not the slightest regard
to some liver and lish-otfal thrown out lo draw its attention.
The colours of the soft parts of the while-breasted bird shot on the Slh of Novrinber 1HTJ were as
follows :—Iris dark hazel. The hooked portion of the upper mandible lemon-yellow; the remainder lemon
and greenish towards base; the ridge or tube at the base a dark horn. This protuberance falls away
FULMAR,
considerably after death; in a few years Hie various portious of the beak, with the exception of I be points
o! both upper and loner mandibles, become somewhat contracted. Point of luwer mandible lemonyellow,
the upper ridge lemon and the lower a pale grey. Legs, toes, and webs a pale silvery grey,
lhe scales being finely marked out with a slightly darker shade; the nails white. The description of
the beak of the dark grey bird fouud on the shore of the Firth of Forth, and noted down at the time,
corresponds in nlmost every particular with those of the birds in the same plumage met with on the
Norfolk coast : —Points of upper and lower maudibles pale yellow, remaining portions of both pale dull
grey; the ridgo or tube on the upper inaudible a pale browoish horn, slightly darker in sonic specimens. A
little pale pink llesh veined with red showing round the gape; inside of mouth a pale flesh. Legs, webs, and
toes pale silvery grey; nails very pale horn. Iris dark hazel.
It is, 1 believe, generally allowed that the dark-coloured birds are smaller than those with white
heads and breasts. An exceedingly dingy-coloured individual that 1 picked up, floating at sea, about
twenty-live miles olf the laud, on November the Sth, 1H7<), is, however, considerably the largest specimen that
has come under my notice, the beak being also especially bulky.
The figures in the Plate, showing the light and dark stages or forms, are taken from the birds obtained
in the North Sea, off Yarmouth, on the sth of Novemlior, 1S70. As previously stated, the former was shot
and the latter picked up while floating dead on the water.