OUR GANNETS SEA-FOWL OF UNUSUAL INTEREST 



779 



net settlements are now known to exist on the mainland 

 of any country, anywhere. It is strange that in the places 

 enumerated they breed by the thousands in earlier 

 years by the millions and not anywhere else. Ages ago 

 these gannetries were leased to corporations, which had 

 the sole right to collect eggs and kill the birds for their 

 patrons, as both were much in demand for the table. 

 These rights were designated as "Inquisitions" or "Ex- 

 tents," and 

 some very an- 

 cient records 

 of them are on 

 file, especially 

 i n England. 

 One of the old- 

 est of these is 

 that of Lundy 

 Island, which 

 is off the north 

 coast of Dev- 

 onshire, where 

 in former years 

 the g a n n e t s 

 bred in enor- 

 mous numbers. 



Off the coast 

 of Ireland 

 both the "Bull" 

 and the "Lit- 

 tle Skellig" are 

 occupied b y 

 many thou- 

 sands of gan- 

 nets, and their 

 p r e c i p i tons 

 cliffs are simp- 

 ly packed with 

 their nests in 

 the breeding 

 season. From 

 one cause or 

 another, the 

 bird popula- 

 tion of any 

 gannetry may 

 be reduced to 

 a very scant 

 number; then, 

 favorable 

 times coming, 

 a recruiting 

 takes place, 

 and the number of gannets again mount up into the 

 thousands. At present there appear to be some 16,000 

 gannets on Skellig and only 500 on the Bull. Ailsa 

 Craig, in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, is, next to Bass 

 Rock, the most accessible breeding place of these fowls. 



The history of the gannets on Ailsa Craig is a long and 

 very interesting one. In the old days, when the "fowl- 



THE GANNETRY OF AILSA CRAIG 



Ailsa Craig is one of the great breeding places of the gannet; it is situated oflf the coast 

 of Ayrshire, in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland. The view here is of the West Cliff. This 

 famous rock is about nine miles off the coast, and rises 1,114 feet above the sea-level ; it is 

 composed of columnar syenite, like the columns of the celebrated Giant's Causeway, and it 

 is atop of the broken-off columns that the gannets build their nests. 



ers" used to gather up the gannets on the Craig, they 

 killed them by a blow on the neck with a billhook or 

 with a cudgel; some, perchance, were knocked into the 

 sea and got away. A few of these have been found by 

 naturalists; and Dr. R. O. Cunningham has evidently 

 examined the healed or partially healed injuries of some 

 of them, reporting the fact that gannets make most re- 

 markable recoveries from such wounds, especially in the 



matter of the 

 reuniting o f 

 fractures of the 

 bones. 



Mr. Gurney 

 has visited 

 Ailsa Craig in 

 person, and in 

 his book he 

 has given us 

 the most won- 

 derful account 

 of it; he gives 

 as a present es- 

 timate that the 

 bird colony 

 there averages 

 a population of 

 some 6,000 in- 

 dividuals. An- 

 other writer 

 gives it 30,000 ; 

 but we must 

 believe that he 

 is very wide of 

 the mark. 



To pass on 

 to our own 

 side of the At- 

 lantic, we have 

 the gannet- 

 rocks on the 

 coast of Can- 

 ada, which lat- 

 ter have been 

 visited by a 

 number of 

 American orni- 

 t h o 1 o g i sts. 

 Upon the 

 whole our 

 treatment o f 

 the gannets 

 will be found 

 to be a sad story and an object lesson in the matter of 

 conservation; for, as we have wasted thousands upon 

 thousands of acres of the timber constituting our forests, 

 so we have, at different times, wiped off the face of the 

 earth millions upon millions of our birds the most 

 beautiful of all living forms inhabiting this planet. How- 

 ever, there is this wonderful difference forests can be 



