THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 185 



and also how vicious they were to one another, for if any neigh- 

 bour came within reach of the silting bird the latter considered 

 it his or her duty to attack them, which it did to the best of its 

 ability ; as, for instance, we saw one bird in difficulties — one had 

 hold of it by one of its legs, another hung on to one wing, and a 

 third bird held it by its beak, and each bird was tugging away 

 heartily, so the unfortunate captive had a bad time of it. They 

 make blood flow freely in their attacks one on the other, and one 

 bird we noticed had a deep wound on its back and was at the 

 outskirts of the rookery, looking very sick and standing bunched-up 

 by itself. About a score of Silver Gulls, Larns novce-hollandio' , 

 espied it and set upon the poor bird, driving it away from its 

 companions into the tussocky grass, where they probably soon 

 despatched and ate it. It is astonishing how vicious sea birds, 

 especially sea-gulls, are to one another, and any weakly or injured 

 ones quickly get destroyed and eaten. According to my mind 

 they are worse in this respect than any hawk. When we dis- 

 turbed a Gannet so much that it had to take to flight we noticed 

 that it first emptied the solid contents of its stomach alongside 

 its egg, and being thus lightened flew away, and fish so disgorged 

 were in all stages of digestion, and some of them weighed as much 

 as four pounds ; how the birds could have swallowed some of the 

 fish I do not know. They must have a very elastic throat to get 

 them down at all, and then can only do so head first ; of course 

 that part naturally gets digested first, and as that proceeds the 

 tail end of the fish gets more into the stomach, as the fish, being 

 often so long, can't get all down at once. 



The view of Babel Island from the Gannet rookery was very 

 fine, showing the masses of granite rock at its peak in bold relief, 

 and with the glasses we were enabled to make out the eyrie of a 

 White-bellied Sea Eagle near the summit ; we were informed by 

 our captain that at dusk, when the Mutton-birds came in, 

 Babel Island was from this spot quite blotted out by the millions 

 of birds that flew over and round it, and from our own experience 

 we would say that it was so, although difficult to realize. At one 

 point of Cat Island a number of Pacific Gulls, Laws facificus, 

 had their nests, forming a small colony, but we also found them 

 building on most of the islands we visited. They made their 

 nests generally among tussocky grass, or occasionally in raesem- 

 bryanthemum, or pig-face, and it was a shallow open structure on 

 the ground, and composed of a few tufts of coarse grass. The 

 usual clutch of eggs was three, and very handsome eggs they are, 

 of a rich brown colour. I am afraid we had not much com- 

 punction in taking a few of their eggs, as we knew what adepts 

 they were in doing the same thing to their neighbours if they got 

 half a chance, but they also largely feed on shell-fish, and they had 

 their favourite rocks on which to break the shells. At such places 



