COMMON GANNET. 229 
as broad externally. It is composed of seaweeds and maritime grasses, 
the former being at times brought from considerable distances. Thus, 
the Gannets breeding on the rocks in the Gulf of St Lawrence, carry 
weeds from the Magdalene Islands, which are about thirtymiles distant. 
The grasses are pulled or dug up from the surface of the breeding place 
itself, often in great clods consisting of roots and earth, and leaving 
holes not unlike the entrances to the burrows of the Puffm. The nests, 
like those of Cormorants, are enlarged or repaired annually. The 
single egg, of a rather elongated oval form, averages three inches and 
one-twelfth in length, by two inches in its greatest breadth, and is 
covered with an irregular roughish coating of white calcareous matter, 
which on being scraped off, leaves exposed the pale greenish-blue tint 
of the under layer. 
The birds usually reach the rock when already paired, in files often 
of hundreds, and are soon seen billing in the manner of Cormorants, and 
copulating on the rocks, but never, like the birds just mentioned, on the 
water, as some have supposed’ The period of their arrival at their breed- 
ing grounds appears to depend much on the latitude of the place; for, on 
the Bass Rock, in the Firth of Forth, which I had the pleasure of visiting 
in the agreeable company of my learned friend Witttam MacciLLIvRay 
and his son, on the 19th of August 1835, the Gannets are first seen in 
February, whereas in the Gulf of St Lawrence they rarely reach the 
Great Rock until the middle of April or beginning of May; and at 
Chateau Beau in the Straits of Belle Isle, not until a fortnight or three 
weeks later. Like the members of most large communities, the 
Gannets, though so truly gregarious at this season, shew a considerable 
degree of animosity towards their more immediate neighbours as soon 
as incubation commences. A lazy bird perhaps, finding it easier to 
rob the nest of its friend of weeds and sods, than to convey them 
from some distant place, seizes some, on which the other resents 
the injury, and some well-directed thrusts of their strong bills are 
made, in open day and in full view of the assembled sitters, who rarely 
fail to look on with interest, and pass the news from one to another, 
until all are apprized of the quarrel. ‘Uhe time however passes on. 
The patient mother, to lend more warmth to her only egg, plucks a few 
of the feathers from some distance beneath her breast. In sunny 
weather, she expands those of her upper parts, and passing her bili along 
their roots, destroys the vile insects that lurk there. Should a boister- 
