February 1, 1895.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



43 



Several nests, loosely formed of feathers, grass, and sticks, 

 and containing two or three straw-coloured eggs, spotted 

 and blotched with rich brown, were placed in a hollow 

 scraped in the ground (Fig. 2). The gulls, however, were 

 very wild, rising off their nests as soon as they caught 

 sight of us. Leaving the grass, we walljed round the edge 

 of the rock, from which a fairly good view can be had of 

 the countless number of birds breeding on its precipitous 

 sides, and two of our party climbed a long way down amongst 

 them. Jumping, or clambering down, from ledge to ledge, 

 one could not proceed without treading on a gannet's nest 

 here and there, so thickly were the ledges populated. 

 Moreover, the gannets were so bold, that they stood up in 

 the nests, and flapping their wings, croaked and pecked at 

 the intruders, each holding down the solitary egg with the 

 webbed foot all the while. An old bhd was provoked to this 

 position, and the camera brought to bear on her (Fig. 3), 

 but, as will be seen in the figure, she had almost closed her 

 wings before the plate was exposed. This bird's peculiar 

 habit of holding down its egg no doubt gave rise to 

 the old behef that the gannet hatched its egg with its 

 foot. The nest of the gannet is flat and round, and is 

 formed for the most part of seaweed, but anything, such 

 as sticks and straw, that the bird finds floating on the sea, 

 is picked up and heaped upon the nest. The nests are 

 added to from year to year, and consequently some of them 

 are of a considerable height ; moreover, they are extremely 

 filthy, swarmirg with vermin, and emit a disagreeable 

 smell. 



When first laid the egg is pale blue, overlaid with a layer 

 of chalky white, but it soon becomes dirty, until when 

 hard set, it can scarcely be distinguished from the nest 

 itself. Several young birds were hatching out as we climbed 

 down. When just hatched, the young gannet is a curious 

 object ; a large head and beak protrude from a bluish-black 

 naked mass. As the bird grows, however, this black skin 

 is covered with beautiful white down, which in its turn is 

 replaced by deep brown feathers, speckled with white ( Fig. 4) . 

 At each moult the white on the bird's feathers increases, 

 until when from three to five years old (the exact age has 

 not yet been ascertained) the gannet comes to maturity, 

 dressed in a plumage of shining white, with black-tipped 

 wings and cream-coloured head. 



The young are at first fed with half-digested fish given 

 to them by the old birds, and as they grow stronger whole 

 fish are brought to them ; but the parent birds never carry 

 food to the young in the beak — they invariably swallow the 

 fish and eject it upon reaching the nest. It is a curious 

 fact that if the gannet has any undigested food in its 

 stomach as it is about to fly from its nest, the food is 

 disgorged and deposited near the nest ; and when the 

 young are old enough to feed themselves they scoop up 

 these half-digested fish with their beaks and swallow them. 



After attaining their first plumage, and when they have 

 become plump, the young are collected by the lessees of the 

 Bass. They ai-e plucked, flayed, roasted, and sold for 

 eating at a few pence each. A certain amount of oil which 

 is extracted from the skin and entrails was formerly used 

 as a remedy for gout, but is now generally employed as 

 grease for cart-wheels. The feathers when properly 

 prepared and freed from their fishy smell, also have their 

 market value, so that little of the bird is wasted. 



Perhaps the most interesting habit of the gannet is the 

 way in which it obtains its food. Flying along at about 

 one hundred feet above the sea, the bird espies a herring, 

 mackerel, or some other fish which swims near the surface 

 of the water, and suddenly stopping its onward flight, it 

 trembles in the air for ii moment as if to take aim, but 

 only for a moment, when, with closed wings, it drops into 



the water like a stone. Scarcely has the great splash 

 caused by its fall subsided, than the bird rises to the surface 

 with its prey, and floating for a moment swallows the fish, 

 and then mounting into the air resumes its onward flight. 

 Often as this feat is performed, the gannet very rarely 

 fails to capture the fish at which it aims. In some parts 

 of the coast these birds are caught by the fishermen by 

 fastening a herring to a board and floating it on the sea. 

 The gannet diving down upon the fish, is stunned or kOled 

 by the board, which is often transfixed by its beak. In 

 the winter, when the gannets leave their nesting- places and 

 distribute themselves round the coast, their arrival is 

 always hailed by the fishermen as a sure sign that fish 

 are in the neighbourhood. 



There are several points in the anatomy of the gannet 

 well worthy of attention. Its nostrils are closed, the 

 tongue is aborted, and the feet are webbed ; but the chief 

 peculiai'ity In the structure of this remarkable bird is the 

 presence of a large number of air cells throughout almost 

 the whole surface of the body. Some of these air cells are 

 very large, and they all communicate with the lungs, and 

 can be inflated or emptied at will. 



The distribution of the difl'erent species of birds was very 

 noticeable as we climbed down the precipitous sides of the 



■■;f^*m^. 



^ 



I 



■^'''• 



■.imt. 



Fig. 4. — I'ouQg Lramiet iii the first plumage. 



Bass. From the top to about half the distance down, the 

 gannets had monopolized every shelf, but the lower we 

 climbed the less numerous the gannets became, their place 

 being taken by rows of guillemots and razorbills, which lay 

 their eggs on the bare rock, and therefore the contrast 

 between the ledges occupied by the gannets and those used by 

 the guillemots was remarkable. The former were covered 

 with dirty nests and strewn with every kind of rubbish, 

 while those on which the guillemots were sitting were 

 comparatively clean. Both the guillemot and the razorbill 

 lay a single egg of a large size, the guillemot always 

 choosing an open position on which to deposit its egg, 

 while the egg of the razorbill may usually be found in a 

 small crevice, or in some more or less sheltered ledge. The 

 reason for this difl'erence in the habits of the two birds may, 

 perhaps, be found by examining the respective shapes of the 

 eggs. The guillemot's egg is pyriform, being very broad at 

 one end and pointed at the other, and this causes it to 

 revolve on its own axis should it be touched or should the 

 wind blow it. The razorbill's egg, on the other hand, has 

 not this shape, and the bird no doubt places it in a crevice for 

 safety. But this is not the only difference in the breeding 



