264} PELECANID.'E. 



meant. In 1849, it was stated that — "At the larger Skellig 

 island they used to abound, but since the erection of a lighthouse 

 upon it, they have been confined to the small rock, where they 

 still breed in considerable uumbers/.^"^ 



A letter from J. F. Townsend, Esq., dated Castle Townsend, 

 September 22nd, 1850, informs me that the number of gannets 

 breeding on the Lesser Skelhg may be about 500 pair, in which 

 enumeration Mr. Carter, Commander of H.M. Eevenue Cruizer 

 Badger, and Mr. Bates, the next officer in command, who have 

 been much about the rock, agree with him. Some people at 

 Valentia state, that they pay the proprietor of the Skellig for the 

 privilege of killing gannets, &c. They sell the young birds for 

 food. My correspondent has never known sea-birds' eggs used 

 as food, nor heard, save in the instance of the young gannets, of 

 the flesh of sea-fowl being eaten in the south-west of Ireland. 

 Puffins are killed at the Skellig for the sake of their feathers. t 

 From this station the birds probably wander northward, to Round- 

 stone, on the Galway coast, in summer and autumn, where they are 

 commonly seen, especially during the herring fishery. J But as 

 adult birds appear on all parts of the coast in the height of the 

 breeding season, when it inay be presumed they '^ sleep at 

 home,"§ they doubtless are spread round our coasts from Lundy 

 Island, Ailsa, SkelHg island, and occasionally, perhaps, from St. 



* Mr. E. Chute. 



t I had heard nothing of any other breeding-haunt of the ganuet, than the Skellig, 

 until the Stags of Broadhaveu were incidentally mentioned in a letter from Mr. 

 Townsend, iu September 1850. On the 29th of the mouth, that gentleman favoured 

 me with the following information on the subject. On his visiting that part of 

 the coast of IMayo in a yacht in July 1830, hundreds of young gannets appeared 

 near the vessel, and vast numbers of old and young were about the rocks. In a 

 sketch then made of the locality, this species was introduced as a characteristic bird. 

 Mr. Townsend remarks: — "There cannot be the least doubt that the ganuet bi'eeds 

 at Broadhaven. In eveiy sense they seemed quite ' at home' there. The Stags are 

 huge insulated rocks, apparently as high as the Lesser Skellig, towering over the 

 ocean at a considerable distance from the shore ; — steep, craggy, and uninhabited. 

 It was a sort of relief when we sailed away from their awful sides and gloomy 

 shadows." 



% The late Mr. J. Nimmo. 



§ Mr. Knos, however, remarks that — " During the uight they sleep ou the water 

 so profoundly as frequently to allow the boats to pass over them." — ' Birds of Sussex,' 

 p. 243. 



