24 



Gannets 



and keeping up a constant guttural quarrel, occasionally snapping 

 with their beaks, and making a great clatter, but apparently doing 

 no real damage. 



Some were sitting on their solitary egg or brooding their 

 chicks, others were engaged in feeding their young. The manner 

 in which this is effected varies according to the age of the young ; 

 in the case of the newly-hatched nestling, the mother, standing by 

 the side of the nest, regurgitates a quantity of semi-digested fish 

 into her mouth, lowers her head to the level of the little naked 

 monstrosity, opens her bill widely, and the young one inserts its 



Fig. I. 



bill and takes such food as it requires, or as the mother thinks good 

 for it. As the young grow older and stronger, the same sort of 

 proceeding is followed, only the young now thrusts the whole length 

 of its head and neck down into the mother's gullet, pushing itself 

 in as far as it possibly can, and taking the food out of its mother's 

 crop. Finally, as they attain nearly their full size, they are fed on 

 the natural fish as they are brought in by the parents. 



As I climbed down, the Gannets with fresh eggs made off to 

 sea at once, but those with much-incubated eggs and young were 

 very loth to leave, and some I could almost touch with my hand 

 before they would stir. Some few of the nests were empt}' ; probably 

 they had been robbed by the Great Black-backed Gulls, for there 



