482 THE GANNET 



bird, which had been in excellent health until the last 

 fortnight of its life, unfortunately began to droop and 

 died — August 7th, 1908 — and my observations came to an 

 abrupt end. The tinge of yellow upon its crown and 

 nape had little if at all increased (which I attribute to the 

 effect of the confinement which must have retarded it), 

 and there were still remaining a few brown feathers upon 

 the belly, but they had faded. 



Plumage of the Third Year. — ^When a Gannet is about 

 twenty-six months old it exhibits a yellow occiput and a 

 partly black back, forming a handsome conjunction of 

 colours. When twenty-eight months it should have (if 

 the normal moult has been adhered to) nearly acquired 

 its complete white plumage, but there still remain a few 

 small patches of black on the lower part of the back, and 

 upon the wings (photograph No. 9). The black tail^ is the 

 last portion of the immature plumage to be shed ; in a 



* A black-tailed Gannet which came from Iceland is figured in Gould's 

 " Birds of Eiu-ope " (1837, Vol. V.) under the designation of Sularnelanura 

 Temminck, but in 1840 Temminck had found out the true exjilanation of 

 these black-tailed birds (" Manuel d'Orn.," 2nd edition, 4th part, p. 509). 

 It was also upon a black-tailed Gannet that Baldainus foimded his Sula 

 lefevri (" Naumania," 1851, Pt. IV., p. 38). It should nevertheless be 

 mentioned that Mr. Ogilvie-Grant — the author of the Steganopodes, etc., 

 in the British Museum " Catalogue of Birds," Vol. XXVI — considers Prof. 

 Macgillivray's description of a black-tailed Gannet, which was killed at 

 The Bass in May, 1831 (" Brit. Birds," V., p. 420), to have been really 

 taken from a Sv!a capensis [t.c, p. 429) 



