216 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



the Bahama Islands. Breeding grounds protected on Desecheo 

 Island reservation, Porto Rico. 



Wi7iter i^angc. — Practically the same as the breeding range. 



Casual records. — Accidental on the coast of Florida (Micco, Feb- 

 ruary 16, 1895.) 



Egg dates. — Mexican islands: TAventy-four records, April 29 to 

 December 10 ; twelve records, May 2 to 18. Swan Island, Caribbean 

 Sea : One record, March 31. 



MORUS BASSANUS (Linnaeus). 



GANNET. 



HABITS. 



Da}^ after day w^e had gazed, from the hilltops of the northern 

 Magdalens, across the waters of the stormy Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 toAvard the distant Labrador coast, where we could see looming up 

 on the horizon a lofty reddish mass of rock, the goal of our ambitions 

 and the mecca of many an American ornithologist, Bird Eock. At 

 last the day came sufficiently smooth for us to risk the trip in our 

 tiny craft, the only boat available. To visit and storm that almost 

 impregnable seabirds' fortress is risky enough in a seaworthy vessel, 

 for storms come up without much Avarning and the waA^es thunder at 

 the base of its almost perpendicular cliffs with such fury, that only 

 during the calmest Aveather can a landing be effected Avith safety 

 on a narrow beach. At the time of our visit the present comfortable 

 landing had not been completed. It is now no longer necessary to 

 be hoisted up in a crate, a hundred feet or more to the top of the 

 rock. 



Gannets Avere seen flying past us toAvard the rock, as they returned 

 from their fishing grounds and as Ave drcAv near we could see a swarm 

 of white birds circling about it. The setting sun shone full upon 

 its towering cliffs of red sandstone, deeply cut or carA'ed by the ele- 

 ments into ledges and shelves of varying sizes and shapes; the 

 broader ledges seemed coA^ered Avith snow and it was hard to believe 

 that such Avide bands of Avhite Avere really colonies of nesting gan- 

 nets. The Avhole side of the rock seemed to be coA^ered with birds; 

 wherever there Avas room for them the gannets were sitting on their 

 nests on the wider ledges; clouds of noisy kittiwakes were hovering 

 OA-erhead or nesting on the smallest shelves of rock ; razor-billed auks 

 were breeding in the crevices near the top of the rock and the murres, 

 Brunnich, and the common, were sitting in long rows upon their eggs 

 on the narrower ledges. Such Avas the home of the gannet as I saw it 

 in 1904. 



The history of the gannet colonies of Bird Rock is interesting as 

 showing the effect of human agencies in the extermination of bird life. 



