Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/339

Rh The Arctic Expedition, composed of H.M. ships 'Alert' and 'Discovery,' accompanied by the 'Valorous,' sailed from Ports- mouth for Greenland on the 29th May, 1875, under the command of Captain G. S. Nares, R.N. A rough voyage across the Atlantic, in a small ship over-crowded with stores, afforded but few oppor- tunities for researches in Natural History, whilst a cabin six feet by seven feet, containing clothes, appurtenances and outfit for a possible residence of three years within the Arctic Circle, was not conducive to the happiness or comfort of a landsman. Most of my time, in consequence, was passed on deck endeavouring to find a dry corner, when not at meals or sleeping. At limes the weather moderated sufficiently to permit the use of the lowing-net, when some of the Atlantic surface-fauna was brought on board, which, placed under the microscope, served to wile away an hour. A few species of sea-birds were observed between Ireland and Cape Farewell, and the observations on their habits, and dispersion over the Atlantic admit of the following notice.

On the 6th June, when 170 miles west of the coast of Galway and 360 miles south-west of St. Kilda, — the nearest known breeding station of the species, — Fulmars, Fulmarus glacialis, approached the ship, and remained constant attendants until entering the ice of Smith Sound, a distance of twenty-five degrees of latitude, or over 1500 miles. I have referred in a previous volume* to the peculiar distribution of the Fulmar in the Atlantic, namely, to the north of the fifty-third parallel, an observation first recorded by the late Professor Goodsir. That this bird should be extremely common in the Atlantic in the latitude of Ireland, whilst Thompson f considered it an extremely rare visitor to the same coast, is noteworthy. Its absence from the neighbourhood of the Shetland Islands during the breeding season, with its presence some thirty or forty miles to the northward, and its abundance around the Faeroe Islands, where it has been a breeding species for the last forty years, are points in the natural history of this bird which require elucidation. Fulmars and Petrels are far closer attendants on a vessel during rough than smooth weather, the reason doubtless being that the marine organisms which compose their usual food sink to a stratum of undisturbed water when the surface-layer of the sea becomes agitated by storms. The blue variety of the Fulmar is apparently merely an immature stage of

'The Zoologist,' 1877, p. 470.

+ 'Nat. Hist. Ireland,' vol. iii., p. .406.