Page:The birds of America, volume 7.djvu/281

Rh he says, "were detained by the ice in Jacob's Bay, in latitude 71°, from the 24th of June to the 3d of July, Fulmars were passing in a continual stream to the northward, in numbers inferior only to the flight of the Passenger Pigeon in America." While on my way to Labrador, I was told that they bred on the Seal Islands off the entrance of the Bay of Fundy. The egg, which is of a regular ovate form, with a smooth brittle pure white shell, measures two inches and seven-eighths in length, by two inches in breadth. My much esteemed friend Mr. Selbt, in his Illustrations of British Ornithology, gives the following account of this species. "The steep and rocky St. Kilda, one of the western islands of Scotland, is the only locality within the British dominions annually resorted to by the Fulmar, the rest of the Scottish and our more southern coasts being rarely visited even by stragglers. Upon St. Kilda these birds are found in vast numbers during the spring and summer months, breeding in the caverns and holes of the rocks; and, from the various uses to which the down, feathers, and oil of the young are applied, contribute essentially to the comfort of the inhabitants. They lay but one egg each, white, and of a large size, with a shell of very brittle texture. The young are hatched about the middle of June, and are fed with oil thrown up by the parents (the produce of the food upon which they subsist), and, as soon as fledged, are eagerly sought for by the natives, although often at the risk of life, in scaling the tremendous and overhanging cliffs in which they nestle. Like most of the group, these birds have the power of ejecting oil with much force through their tubular nostrils, which is used as the principal mode of defence; it becomes an essential point, therefore, that they should be taken and killed by surprise, in order to prevent the loss of a liquid so requisite for the comfort of the inhabitants, by supplying them with the necessary fuel for their lamps. The Fulmar is of voracious appetite, feeding upon all sorts of animal substance, particularly of an oily nature, such as the blubber of whales, seals, &c; and for this purpose it follows in great num- bers the track of the whale vessels, and is so greedy of its favourite food, as to be often seen alighting upon the wounded animal, when not quite dead, and immediately proceeding to break the skin with its strong hooked bill, and gorging itself with the blubber to repletion."

The Rev. Mr. Scoresby, in his "Arctic Regions," vol. i. p. 528, gives the following account of its habits as observed by him in the polar seas. "The Fulmar is the constant companion of the whale-fisher. It joins his ship immediately on passing the Shetland Islands, and accompanies it through the trackless ocean to the highest accessible latitudes. It keeps an eager watch for any thing thrown overboard; the smallest particle of fatty sub- stance can scarcely escape it. As such, a hook baited with a piece of fat meat or blubber, and towed by a long twine over the ship's stern, is a means