GANNET. 491 



they have never been known to breed. During incuba- 

 tion, in consequence of being unmolested, they become 

 very tame ; and, where the nests are easily accessible upon 

 the flat surface of the rock on the south-west side of the 

 island, will allow themselves to be stroked by the hand 

 without resistance, or any show even of impatience, except 

 a low guttural note." 



The birds form their nests of a mass of weeds and grass, 

 upon which they deposit a single egg, which, when first 

 laid, is of a chalky white, tinged with pale blue, but soon 

 becomes soiled ; the length is three inches three lines, by 

 one inch and ten lines in breadth. The changes between 

 black and white these birds undergo are very curious. 

 From the white egg the young one is excluded with a 

 smooth and naked bluish-black skin, which soon becomes 

 covered with a white down ; this growing rapidly is soon 

 very thick, giving them the appearance of large powder 

 puffs, or masses of cotton. Through this white down their 

 first true feathers issue, and these are black, to be fol- 

 lowed by the adult plumage which is again white. Gan- 

 nets feed exclusively upon fish, and being birds of great 

 powers of flight, they take a very wide range over the sea 

 in search of food. Shoals of herrings, pilchards or sprats, 

 appear to have the greatest attraction for them, and all the 

 species of the genus Clupea, it will be recollected, swim 

 near the surface. On quitting their northern breeding- 

 stations in autumn, many of these birds take a southern 

 direction. Off the Cornish coast, Mr. Couch says in his 

 Fauna, " Adult birds are most abundant in autumn, and 

 winter, fishermen learning by the actions of these birds 

 when shoals of pilchards are present, and the direction they 

 are pursuing. The Gannet takes its prey in a different 

 manner from any other of our aquatic birds ; for traversing 

 the air in all directions, as soon as it discovers the fish it 



