THE FAROES AND ICELAND 287 



which is possibly of long standing, though Olafsen makes 

 no mention of it. The following was taken by the late 

 Professor Newton from Friedrick Faber's Journal, 1819-21, 

 which is preserved at Copenhagen. 



TRANSLATION OF FABER'S JOURNAL. PART I., P. 76. 



" Aves in Grimson [Grimsey Island] . . . .(1819). . . , 

 Pelecanus hassanus seldom, about 10 pairs are seen in the 

 sea-skerries. Comes first in May, breeds first in June, 

 goes away in August. ... On Grimsey [itself] only three 

 [pairs] breed ; but ten or twelve on an isolated rock standing 

 in the sea close by, and one sees their long necks upon the 

 fiat top of the rock." 



Grimsey is the most northern breeding haunt of the Gannet, 

 which is probably the reason why they arrive thus late and 

 depart so early. Professor Newton was informed by Mr. 

 Bernhard Hantzsch, who visited Grimsey in 1903, and has 

 since published his experiences,* that the Gannets have 

 increased five-fold since Faber's time, there being, when he 

 was there, from fifty to sixty pairs. 



The presence of other communities of Gannets has been 

 suspected on the west coast of Iceland, for though Faber 



* "Vogelwelt Islands," von Bernhard Hantzsch. In this work, which 

 describes one hundred and twenty birds, there is a good photograph of the 

 Gannets' cliff. See also " Die Vogelinsel Grimsey (Nord-Island)," 1904, 

 by the same author. 



