430 THE GANNET 



one pair of Gannets would multiply into three hundred 

 and ninety -eight birds, if they began to breed at the 

 age of three, and all bred every season. Wliat becomes of 

 them ? It seems almost impossible that so many die 

 for lack of food, yet be it remembered food is the primary 

 condition which determines the existence of all wild 

 animals. Now that so few are killed at St. Kilda, where 

 they are no longer eaten, and where bird-oil and birds' 

 feathers have ceased to have much value, the young 

 Gannets which annually take the water at that place 

 alone probably number nearly ten thousand.* But 

 it is not only at St. Kilda that no young ones have 

 been killed for years ; practically none have been 

 taken at Ailsa Craig, the Bass Rock, the Irish stations, 

 or at Grassholm, and from these places probably five 

 thousand more young Gannets put to sea every 

 year. What, then, becomes of all these fifteen thousand 

 young Gannets ? Here is a problem, none too easy of 

 solution. No doubt some go to augment the breeding- 

 stock at existing stations, notably at the Skelligs, where the 

 increase is very gratifying ; but still, this does not account 



* The Rev. Neil Mackenzie, formerly Minister at St. Kilda, estimated 

 the average annual hatch of Fulmar Petrels at St. Kilda to be 20,000, 

 the take being about 12,000 (" Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist.," 1905, p. 78). Ten 

 thousand young Gannets wovild therefore be reckoning the Gannet 

 population as equalling half that of the Fulmars, 



