THE GANNETS. 



219 



green at the base; bare space round the eyes, lines on the bill, 

 and gular space black; feet brownish-black, the scales light 

 greenish-blue or emerald-green ; claws greyish-white ; iris pale 

 yellowish-white. Total length, 33 inches; culmen, 3-85 ; wing, 

 18*4; tail, 8*3; tarsus, 2*1. 



Adult Female. Similar to the male. 



Young Birds. When first hatched the nestlings are bare and 

 slaty-black in colour, with the bill and naked region of the eye 

 black. As they progress they become covered with dense 

 white down. The full plumage of the young bird is greyish- 

 brown, spotted with white, each feather having a triangular 

 spot at the end, these spots being very numerous on the head 

 and neck; the bastard-wing, primary- coverts, and quills are 

 blackish, rather more ashy on the inner webs, the innermost 

 secondaries tipped with white ; tail-feathers black, with white 

 shafts ; throat greyish-brown, spotted with white like the upper 

 surface ; remainder of under surface of body dull white, mottled 

 with ashy-grey, with which colour the feathers are tipped ; 

 i under wing-coverts blackish, spotted with white. After the 

 | second moult they become more uniform below, and the head 

 and neck are mottled with white, and, according to Mr. See- 

 bohm, the white colour gradually predominates after the third 

 and fourth moults, until the full white plumage is assumed 

 after the fifth moult. 



Range in Great Britain. Although the Gannet occurs on all 

 our coasts, the breeding-places are confined to a few colonies, 

 the only one in England being on Lundy Island, but another 

 exists on the island of Grassholme, off the Pembrokeshire 

 coast. In Scotland the best-known places are Ailsa Craig and 

 the Bass Rock ; and other breeding colonies are at Boreray in 

 the St. Kilda group, Sulisgeir or North Barra, and the stack of 

 Suleskerry, about forty miles west of Stromness. These are 

 all the places mentioned by Mr. Howard Saunders in his latest 

 work. In Ireland, Mr. Ussher says, the principal breeding- 

 place of the species is the Little Skellig, off Kerry, but a con- 

 siderable colony also exists on the Bull Rock, off Cork, as was 

 recorded in 1868 ; and notwithstanding that a lighthouse has 

 now been erected there since 1884-85, the number of nests is 

 estimated at from one hundred and eighty to two hundred by 



