56 THE GANNET 



some with very little black left in their plumage may be 

 three years old.* 



Little more remains to be said about Grasholm Island, as 

 its settlement of Gannets has no early history, there being 

 no books bearing on the subject, or travellers' journals 

 from which quotations can be taken. Local enquiries 

 also have failed in eliciting much as to its age. How- 





GRASHOLM. 



ever, one old fisherman, John Wats, could certify to Gannets 

 on Grasholm for over forty years, while another very old 

 inhabitant, Mr. Williams, of St. David's, remembered his 

 father-in-law, Henry Bowen, telling him there were Gannets, 

 but not many, on Grasholm, as far back as 1820. There 

 can be little doubt that Gannets Avere there before that time, 

 yet Grasholm may have been forsaken awhile, and then 

 re-occupied by a contingent from the harassed community 

 at Lundy, only forty miles away. The fact of Ray and 



* It would be a very exceptional thing to see a yoang Gannet which was 

 still black all over at Grasholm or any other station in June or July, 

 because this phase of plumage is not retained nciore than ten months. 



