26 Gannets 



tufts of coarse grass in the central depression, the whole rotten and 

 fermenting, and adding its quota to the general stench. 



The great waste of fish which occurs at all these breeding- 

 stations has been a source of some surprise to me. Considering the 

 enormous amount of food required by the growing young bird 

 and the sitting parent, and the labour involved in obtaining a 

 sufficient quantity — the birds frequently fl\'ing 50 miles or more 

 to the fishing grounds — it seems strange that the supply should 

 always be kept up so far above the necessary limit. I have formed 

 a theory which may possibly account for the fact. Gannets feeding 

 as they do, on surface-swimming fish, are dependent for their supply- 

 on the weather. If a gale arises, as often happens in an English 

 summer, the fish swim at a greater depth, and be}'ond the ken of the 

 Gannets' keen eyes. If the gale continues for three or four days, 

 during the whole of that time the bird will catch nothing, and it is 

 possible that the fear of such a catastrophe occurring is at the root 

 of the habit, and that the bird's instinct teaches him always to 

 keep a day or two's supplies in hand, as long as he is able to do so. 



After examining one or two more of these colonies, I climbed 

 up to the top again to inspect the rest of the island. The top was 

 thickly covered with Puffins, and absolutely honey-combed with 

 their burrows, so that, in crossing the ground, one had to walk 

 warily or else one's foot broke through the light turf co\'ering the 

 burrows and one descended heavily on the unfortunate Puffin 

 sitting below. The Puffins, like the Gannets, were passing to and 

 fro in a constant stream in search of food, and one noticed a curious 

 fact in the way they carried their fish — almost every bird coming 

 in held not one but three or four fish crosswa^'S in its bill. These 

 fish were small — about the size of whitebait — and were probably 

 the prey of the herring and sprat, but the point of interest was how 

 did the bird manage to hold, say, two fish in his bill, and at the same 

 time catch a third ? Did he drop the two he was holding to catch 

 the third, and then gather the fallen ones again ? I have no 

 explanation to offer, l)ut among the hosts of birds coming in with fish, 

 I never saw one that carried less than two fish at once. 



The Puffins suffered considerably at the hands of a pair of 

 Peregrines that had nested on the rock. The Falcons seemed to 

 knock the unfortunate birds about out of spite and sheer mischief 

 or excess of high spirits. I saw one Falcon in the afternoon knock 

 three or four Puffins down in the space of a minute. He never 

 attempted to gather his prey, but let them lie in the water where 

 they fell. No doubt, they did make use of the Puffins as food, 

 for there were no pigeons on the rock, or other suitable prey, but, 

 judging by what I saw that afternoon, they must have been in the 

 habit of knocking down nine or ten birds for every one they utilized 

 as food. 



We examined a good many Kittiwakes' nests, and climbed 

 along some of the best of the Guillemots' and Razor-bills' ledges. 



