THE GANNET 369 



the ledges. If, as may often occur, several birds are displaying at the 

 same time, the result is a scene of uproarious excitement. The cere- 

 mony above described may be varied by elaborate bows, the neck 

 being arched and the head passed quickly down one flank almost as 

 far as the back of the foot, the wings being spread and waved, and the 

 tail being both raised and bent, not as an effect of the forward and 

 downward movement of the body, but quite independently. A quick, 

 seemingly self-satisfied waggle of the tail sometimes concludes this 

 part of the performance, after which the birds may either resume the 

 bill-wagging, clacking, or whetting, or if their ardour has abated, be 

 content to cosset one another's plumage with the tip of the bill. 



I have timed a display beak-play, with intervals of bowing and 

 cosseting to last one and a half minutes, and this as late as 18th 

 August. Any of the three actions may be performed separately. They 

 all express the same emotion, love or affection, and occur one or the 

 other or all nearly every time one of a pair returns to visit or relieve 

 its sitting mate. No birds, indeed, judging from appearances, are 

 more affectionate than gannets, but their affection has in it a queer 

 element of brutality, which is not, however, peculiar to them : it has, 

 in fact, already been noted in the case of the guillemot (vol. iii. p. 18). 

 Frequently a gannet, on alighting, will seize its sitting mate by the 

 skin of the head and pull the head about viciously this way and that, 

 before starting the usual demonstration of affection beak-wagging, 

 etc. in which the mate heartily joins in spite of the treatment suffered. 

 Sometimes it is the sitting bird that inflicts the injury. Owing to the 

 similarity of the sexes, and the fact that both incubate, it is difficult 

 to be sure whether or not this behaviour is confined to the male. On 

 most occasions it appears to arise merely from exuberance of spirits, 

 on others it is part of a deliberate effort by one of the pair to push 

 the other off the nest in order to take its place upon the egg. That 

 there may not be necessarily any sex element in the action is shown 

 by the fact that often the nestling is the victim. 



The gannet's display will of course vary in details from individual 



