244 Among the Birds in Northern Shires. 



Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth. This is another 

 favourite locality of ours ; we have visited it re- 

 peatedly, and the stirring scenes of bird-life we have 

 witnessed there each time are indelibly fixed upon the 

 memory. It was at the Bass that we went through 

 our apprenticeship to marine cliff- climbing, and 

 where we first made the acquaintance of the Can net 

 at home. As most readers may know, the Bass is 

 one of the few grand breeding-places of the Gannet 

 in the British archipelago. There are several other 

 rock-birds breeding in some plenty upon the Bass, 

 but the Gannet stamps the rock with its individuality, 

 and all other species are overpowered and compara- 

 tively lost amidst its numbers. Perhaps we might 

 make an exception in the case of the Puffins. There 

 is a large colony of these birds established in the 

 walls of a ruined fortification facing the sea, and 

 Puffins may be seen repeatedly coming and going in 

 their usual hasty way. There are many more of 

 these birds breeding here and there about the rock, 

 but this, so far as we know, is the largest congrega- 

 tion. The Gannet is a thoroughly pelagic bird, and 

 only comes to the land to breed, retiring once more 

 to the sea as soon as its young can fly. During the 

 late autumn and throughout the winter the Bass is 

 practically deserted by birds. At the end of March 

 or during the first half of April the Gannets begin to 

 assemble at the time-honoured nesting-place. At 



