36 LUNDY ISLAND. 



black slightly spotted with white ; and this by the 

 spotless white investiture in which we saw them. 



Another reason why the gannets should not be dis- 

 turbed, while so few as they yet are, is the bold 

 piratical character of the larger gulls. These are 

 ever on the watch to destroy the eggs of the gannet, 

 the moment both the parents are flown. We had a 

 proof of the ferocity of these predaceous birds before 

 our eyes. As we were looking down the slope, we 

 saw a glaucous gull emerge from a puffin's hole into 

 which he had just crept, bringing out the little black 

 puffin-chick. We watched the marauder shake his 

 victim and give it repeated blows with his beak, the 

 poor little thing now and then crawling away feebly, 

 just as a mouseling does when half killed by a cat. 

 We began to run towards the spot, the gull taking no 

 notice till we got pretty near, when he turned up his 

 eye and gave us a look of impudent defiance, then 

 deliberately seized his prey in his beak, and bore it 

 off triumphantly far out to sea. The larger gulls 

 will sometimes swoop down upon a group of puffins 

 sitting on the sea, and snatch up an adult from the 

 flock in the powerful beak. Mr Heaven has seen 

 this done. 



Our attention was here pointed to a new bird. On 

 the lower ledges of the wide stair-like rock occupied 

 by the gannets, sat, in little crowded rows, many birds 

 about as large as pigeons, which in form and in the 

 colours of their plumage they much resembled. They 

 were the kittiwake, the smallest of the gulls that can 



