220 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



are added to from year to year by more or less extensive repairs, so 

 that the oldest nests become quite bulky. As a rule, they were fairly 

 well made of fresh seaweed, kelp, or rockweed, in many cases still 

 wet, as if recently pulled up by the birds, but more often partially 

 dried. There were usually a few straws and feathers in or about 

 the nests, and in one case a large piece of canoe-birch bark had 

 been brought in, probably as an ornament. The nests at that date, 

 June 24, all contained eggs, a single egg to each nest, and some of 

 the young had hatched. There was always more or less filth about 

 the nests, broken eggs, decaying fish, and excrement, the ledges often 

 being whitewashed with the latter. 



We found primitive conditions still prevailing on North Bird Rock, 

 about three-quarters of a mile from the large rock; this had been 

 cut into three parts by the action of the sea, two flat-topped rocks 

 with perpendicular sides, joined by a rocky beach and an inacces- 

 sible pillar of rock separated by water. We climbed up the steep 

 sides of one of the rocks and as we looked over the top of the cliff 

 we saw, in miniature, what might have been seen on Bird Eock 50 

 years ago, a wildly scrambling mass of great white birds, frightened 

 by our sudden appearance and stumbling over each other in their 

 haste to get away. The whole flat top of the rock w^as covered with 

 their nests, set about 3 feet apart, leaving just room enough to walk 

 among them, and sufficiently separated for each sitting bird to be 

 beyond the reach of its nearest neighbors, a necessary precaution, 

 for gannets are quarrelsome birds and frequently steal the nesting 

 material from neighboring nests. These nests had evidently been 

 occupied year after year for many seasons, new material being added 

 each year, until a considerable pile of soil had been accumulated 

 by the gradual decay of the nest material and the new portion of 

 the nest occui^ied only the top of the mound. The nests, described 

 by the earlier writers, on the flat top of Bird Rock showed similar 

 signs of age. Gurney (1913) gives an interesting list of the miscel- 

 laneous articles that have been found in gannets' nests and says of 

 their increasing bulk : " Gannets' nests have ever been regarded as 

 substantial edifices — although only intended to receive one egg — in 

 truth, their size attracted attention centuries ago, when in a fissure, 

 or leaning against the rock; Mr. J. M. Campbell has obliged me 

 with a photograph of one 5 feet in height, but they are not all equally 

 large, and some do not measure 18 inches across." 



t'ggs. — The gannet lays only one (i^ffg, which is not large for a 

 bird of its size, varying in shape from elongate ovate to elliptical 

 ovate. The pale bluish white ground color is almost wholly con- 

 cealed by a thick calcareous deposit, which is dull white at first but 

 soon becomes nest stained and much soiled by mud and dirt from 

 the birds' feet. 



