I 



48 



in the nursery itself. Everything seemed well ordered and under excellent discipline. In 

 protecting its naked nestling the old bird would cover it up with her broad webbed feet 

 and press it down into the nest as if determined to stamp its young life out, but without 

 any apparent injury to the chick, which was quite active and perky immediately on being- 

 released from this parental pressure. I did not come for specimens, but to inspect the 

 breeding-place ; however, before leaving I annexed a fine woolly nestling which was strutting 

 about with the air of a lord chancellor, and duly converted him into a cabinet specimen. 

 The rest of the birds, old and young, we left unmolested, and came away from Cape 

 Kidnappers much pleased with the result of our visit, and, after a delightful drive in the 

 cool evening air, arrived at Napier at 10 p.m. On our way along the beach we found a 

 fledgling which had evidently fallen from the " rookery " and had floated a couple of miles 

 down, the coast, but was apparently still attended by the parents, for it was in excellent 

 condition. From this bird I took the following notes : — 



Fledgling. — Feathers appearing on the head, shoulders, and upper-surface of wings, 

 lower part of back, breast, and sides of body of a slaty-black colour, each feather with a 

 large triangular apical spot of white, even the secondaries and primary coverts being thus 

 marked ; bill and naked face, brownish-black ; feet, blackish-grey with broad whitish lines 

 down the tarsus and alom>' the toes. 



GANNETS ON THEIR NESTING-GROUND. 



Captain Waller, of the ' Anglian,' tells me that in muggy weather he always finds the 

 Gannet on the wing an infallible sign that he is nearing the Three Kings. On one occa- 

 sion, however, he saw three of them when upwards of two hundred miles from land, and 

 the occurrence was so unusual that he made an entry of it in his log. 



Eespecting a closely allied species (Sula capensis), I find the following entry in my 

 diary for 1894 :— 



