THE GANNET. 405 



yellow, more buffish-cream and more mixed with white, sometimes 

 mostly white tinged with bumsh-cream. - 



Nestling. — At first skin black, very sparsely covered with short 

 pale creamy -white down with hair -like tips. This is replaced by 

 much longer and more woolly white down which also grows on 

 many parts previously bare and eventually covers whole bird very 

 thickly except on lores, round eyes, fore -head, gape, and chin 

 which are bare, and on throat where down is short and sparse. 

 This down is shed as feathers grow, but is not replaced by them nor 

 is it replaced directly in continuous growth by under-down of 

 feathered stage, though the under-down may succeed it. 







The Gaimet (Sula bassana). Nestling. 



Juvenile. — Whole upper-parts slate-black tinged brown with 

 small white spots, each feather having V-shaped white mark at tip, 

 these marks larger on rump ; upper tail-coverts with tips and most 

 of outer webs white ; throat as upper -parts ; rest of under -parts 

 dull whitish, feathers tipped and edged to varying extent with 

 brownish -slate and those of upper-breast and lower-flanks usually 

 darker and with small white V-shaped tips and whitish shaft-lines, 

 under -parts thus having a mottled appearance ; axUlaries and under 

 tail-coverts slate -brown with white V-shaped tips ; under wing- 

 coverts same but darker as upper -parts ; tail-feathers black-brown 

 with small white tips, shafts pale straw-colour except at tips which 

 darken to black ; primaries and secondaries dark, and slightly 

 glossy, brown, shafts straw at base, innermost secondaries with 

 small white tips ; all wing-coverts as upper -parts except primary- 

 coverts which have no white tips. N.B. — White spots at tips of 



