364 THE GANNET 



young. A disgorged a great mass of half-digested sand- 

 eels, then in twenty minutes it grew restless, and began to 

 try and eat some of this food again, but it took very little. 

 It rested awhile, then faintly pecked at its parent's throat 

 and bill, as if asking for food, but the parent made no 

 response. Then it slept in all sorts of grotesque attitudes, 

 the parent meanwhile standing or sitting to seaward of it. 

 The parent sometimes stood back a little, and waved its 

 wings as if fanning the chick, . . . but no attempt was made 

 to feed the young one, which every now and then barked and 

 yapped like a puppy, for no particular reason. The younger 

 of the two Gannets under focus (B), was much feebler, and 

 lay prone most of the time I watched (nearly six hours). 

 The parent sat sheltering the young one from the sun, 

 and often sat on it. B never clamoured at all ; A only 

 very rarely squeaked faintly . . . On the ledge where 

 I watched there were ten young Gannets, which I kept under 

 observation from 11.40 until 5.20, and not one of these was 

 fed during the time I was there. The lighthouse keepers 

 say that they are mainly fed in the early morning." 



By dint of going down a hundred and fifty feet on a rope 

 with half a hundred- weight of impedimenta on his back, and 

 lying motionless for hours among the nests, Mr. Campbell 

 has succeeded in getting photographs of the feeding process, 

 which show the young Gannet's beak some way down the 



