THE NESTLING 



375 



weeks.* What a contrast is this inertness to the activity 

 of some nestUng birds, f 



Assuming that the egg was laid on May 15th — an average 

 date — that incubation commenced on the 19th, and that it 

 was hatched on July 1st, the young Gannet's life is made 

 up as follows : — 



Hatched 



Able to see 



Covered with down 



Wing feathers begin to shoot 



Skin very loose 



It begins to put on fat 

 Fit to kill for eating . . 

 No longer fed by parents 

 Flies off to sea 

 Begins fishing 



on July 1st. 

 July 8th. 

 „ July 11th. 

 about July 21st. 

 ,, July 31st. 

 ,, July 31st. 

 ,, August 25th. 

 August 30th. 

 ,, September 9th. 

 ,, September 25th. 



The young are fit for taking to eat at the age of seven 

 or eight weeks, and used to be gathered at the Bass Rock 

 in August, by which time young Guillemots and Kittiwake 

 Gulls are on the move, or gone. 



* The period from the hatching of the egg to the voluntary departure 

 of the nesthng which has been termed " the Fledging-period," — not given 

 in any of the works to wliich I have access, — is twenty-eight to thirty 

 days in the Sparrow-Hawk, thirty-three to thirty-four in the Carrion- 

 Crow, twenty-nine to thirty in the Magpie, twenty-one to twenty-two 

 in the Starling, thirteen to fourteen in the Song-Tlirush, twelve to thirteen 

 in the Hedge-Sparrow, and eleven in the Whitethroat, according to 

 Mr. S. E. Brock's observations (" Zoologist," 1910, p. 117). In the Cuckoo 

 it is twenty days. 



t The young of the Brush Turkey, for instance, which can fly the day it 

 is hatched (St. Quintm, " The Naturalist," 1910, p. 1G3). All Megapodes 

 are remarkable for the highly developed condition of their young at birth. 



