AILSA CRAIG 85 



There are few who will forget a first visit to Ailsa Craig : 

 mine was with a friend, no longer living, more than forty 

 years ago, when the young Gannets were still gathered every 

 summer, but this practice has ceased now. The method of 

 despatching them was evidently the same as at the Bass, for 

 I remember our rowing down a fine young bird which was 

 recovering from a terrible blow on the back of its neck, no 

 doubt inflicted by the fowlers, who generally killed them 

 with a billhook or cudgel, and pitched them into the sea. 

 That this bird should have lived after such treatment, and 

 been in good condition, too, with a wound the size of an 

 orange, proves what Dr. R. 0. Cunningham has noticed, viz., 

 the facility with which they recover from accidents, and 

 the rapidity with which re-ossification of their broken bones 

 takes place* 



Young Gannets were thought fairly good for the table 

 at Girvan at that time, but it is not likely they were ever 

 esteemed of the same value as at the Bass. Ailsa Gannets 

 were only sold for consumption among the lower classes, 

 together with Puffins and Guillemots, and were eaten by 

 those who could not afford mutton and beef. I have since 

 learnt that the prices which they realised were ridiculously 



* A young one, macerated by Dr. Cunningham, wliich had by some 

 means fractured furculum, pelvis, and sternum, in fact every bone in its 

 body, had already in a few months got all these injuries repaired by 

 ossification and the natural effusion of callus. 



