50 COMMON GANNET. 



merely a hobble. When the sun shines, they are fond of opening their 

 wings and beating them in the manner of Cormorants, shaking the head 

 meanwhile rather violently, and emitting their usual uncouth guttural notes 

 of cara, kareio, karoiv. You may well imagine the effect of a concert per- 

 formed by all the Gannets congregated for the purpose of breeding on such 

 a rock as that in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where, amidst the uproar pro- 

 duced by the repetition of these notes, you now and then distinguish the 

 loud and continued wolfish howling-like sounds of those about to fly off. 



The newly-finished nest of this bird is fully two feet high, and quite as 

 broad externally. It is composed of seaweeds and maritime grasses, the 

 former being at times brought from considerable distances. Thus, the Gan- 

 nets breeding on the rocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, carry weeds from 

 the Magdalene Islands, which are about thirty miles 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 Puffin. 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 copu- 

 lating on the rocks, but never, like the birds just mentioned, on the water, 

 as some have supposed. The period of their arrival at their breeding 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 William Macgillivray 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. The time however passes on. The patient mother, to lend more 



