NTDIFICATION AND INCUBATION 345 



eggs of the Gannet were formerly in considerable 

 request at St. Kilda, where, according to our observant 

 author Martin, they were held to be good alike for 

 food and physic, and he also attributes the good voices 

 the inhabitants had to " the Solan Goose Egg Supp'd 

 Raw ' ; in another place he says they were found to be 

 " very Pectoral and Cephalick,"* but this was only so for 

 the islanders, as they made the men of his crew ill. 

 A Gannet's egg has been described as "an aquamarine 

 in an opaque casing of white chalk," and that is no 

 exaggeration when it has been cleaned. There is no 

 colour concealment in a Gannet's egg, which indeed 

 has no need for any such protection, for the inaccessibility 

 of its breeding-places is enough. Normally they are white, 

 but they are not free from stains even when just laid, 

 and an egg generally gets very dirty long before the process 

 of incubation is completed, which is not to be wondered 

 at, for it is rolled about and covered by its owner's dirty 

 feet, in all weathers, f Mr. Wilson has coloured a drawing 

 to show what an egg in the soiled state is often like when 

 contrasted with one newly-laid ; it was selected, on the 

 Bass Rock, as being near to hatching and very discoloured, 

 but many others may be found quite as brown. 



* " Voyage to St. Kilda," pp. 50-76. 



t Other rock-birds' eggs get very dirty ; the egg of the Guillemot is 

 sometimes covered with dirt. 



