SULIDyE — THE GANNETS — SULA. 175 



Gannet, where it builds in great numbers. St. Kilda, the outermost of the Hebrides, 

 the sides of wliich are precipitous cliffs fourteen hundred feet high, is another place 

 where the Gannet breeds in large numbers, and where it forms one of the principal 

 sources of the sustenance of the inhabitants. 



Gannets also abound on several of the islands on the south of Iceland. There 

 they arrive early in April, and build large and conspicuous nests of seaweed, which 

 they often bring from a great distance. The eggs are deposited in May, and hatched 

 in July. The Gannets leave for the south in October. 



This is said to be a very long-lived species. Selby was infoi-med by the keeper 

 of the Bass Kock lighthouse that he could recognize certain individuals that for 

 upwards of forty years had returned to the same spot to breed. This bird is also 

 very long in arriving at maturity, the time required being estimated at from four to 

 five years. 



The late Dr. Henry Bryant visited the "Bird Rocks," in the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence, in the summer of 1860, reaching them on the 23d of June. These rocks are 

 two in number, and are known as the Great Gannet Bock and the Little, or Xorth 

 Bird. On these rocky islands he found the Gannets breeding in large numbers. The 

 highest half of the summit of Gannet Rock and the ledges on its sides, and the whole 

 upper part of the pillar-like portion of Little Bird, and the greater part of the remain- 

 ing portion of this rock, were covered with the nests' of the Gannet. On the ledges 

 these were arranged in single lines, nearly or quite touching one another ; and at the 

 summit they were placed at regular distances one from the other of about three feet. 

 Those on the ledges were built entirely of seaweed and other floating substances ; on 

 the summit of the rock they were raised on cones, formed of earth or small stones, 

 about ten inches in height and eighteen in diameter when first constructed, present- 

 ing at a short distance the appearance of a well-hilled potato-field. He saw no nests 

 built of Zostera, or grass, or sods ; the materials were almost entirely Fuel ; though 

 anything available was probably used. In one case the whole nest was composed of 

 straw ; and in another, the chief article used was manila rope-yarn. The nests on 

 the summit of Gannet Rock were never scattered, but ended abruptly in as regular a 

 line as a military encampment. Through the midst of the nests were several open 

 spaces, like lanes, made quite smooth by the continued trampling of the birds, which 

 spaces seemed to be used for play-grounds, and generally extended to the brink of 

 the precipice. 



The birds were feeding principally on herring, but also on capelin filled with 

 spawn, some fine-looking mackerel, a few squids, and in one instance a codfish 

 weighing at least two pounds. The surface was swarming with a species of Staphij- 

 Ibius, that subsisted on the fish dropped by the birds. Occasionally a nest could be 

 seen in which the single egg had not been deposited, and perhaps one in two or three 

 hundred with a newly laid one. On all the rest the Gannets were already sitting; 

 and though none of the eggs were as yet hatched, many of them contained fully 

 formed chicks. On being approached the birds manifested but slight symptoms of 

 fear, and could hardly be driven from their nests ; occasionally one more bold would 

 actually attack the intruder. Their number on the summit could be easily deter- 

 mined by measuring the surface occupied by them. By a rough computation it was 

 made to be about fifty thousand pairs. Probably half as many more were breeding 

 upon the remaining portion of the rock and on the Little Bird. All the birds were 

 in adult plumage ; differing in this respect from those breeding in the Bay of Fundy, 

 where there were many young ones. 



In shape and general appearance the eggs obtained by Dr. Bryant are more like 



