Gannets, many within a foot or two of me. I set up my camera and waited for 

 the return of the birds, which had quitted their nests on my approach. In a 

 few minutes they returned one after another, flopping down on to their nests 

 in a most ridiculously clumsy manner. I sat and watched them for a little 

 while, after taking two photographs. 



' The din at this point was most awful ; the nests being very close together, 

 hardly a bird landed without violent altercation with its neighbour, generally 

 resulting in a fight, while the others round commented loudly on the set-to 

 and backed their favourite : it often ended in both falling over and recovering 

 themselves some way down in the air. I noticed that whenever a bird left 

 the Rock it kept wagging its tail for the first few seconds, as if settling its 

 ruffled plumage. We saw several Gannets with immature plumage sitting on 

 nests, but the most of the immature birds simply sat about the rocks, or 

 spent their time in fishing and sleeping.' 



The Gannet only lays one egg, which is thickly coated all over with a 

 chalky substance, which, on being scraped away, reveals a greenish shell 

 beneath. They vary a good deal in size, but are generally rather oval in 

 shape, and vary in length from 3-4 to 27 inches, and from 22 to r8 inches 

 in breadth. They are always much broader than the eggs of the Cormorant. 



Newly hatched young are quite naked and dark slate-grey in colour, but 

 are soon covered with a thick pure white down. 



VOL. II. R 



