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bringing this bird to England in one of the New Shipping Company’s steamers, having been able to 
lay up a sufficient supply of fresh fish for the voyage in the ship’s freezing-chamber. On arrival I 
presented it, as already mentioned, to the Zoological Society, and there it developed the mature livery, 
sharing for a long time, with numerous other waterfowl, the pond-enclosure near the Eastern Aviary, 
and attracting the notice of visitors by the eager manner in which it followed the keeper about the 
ground at feeding-time. 
Of the Australian Gannet the Earl of Pembroke writes * in the following spirited terms 
“ The splendid yellow-headed species which is common in the South Pacific is, I think, the finest 
of all fishing-birds from John o’ Groats to the Chatham Islands. ..... Soaring high he marks his 
prey beneath him, and shutting up his wings (like a Wood-Pigeon darting into cover) he plunges 
downwards with a splash that makes one s head ache to look at, and after a semicircular dive of five 
or six yards, he emerges, sneezing and flapping, with his prey safely lodged in his throat. I have 
seen a good deal of Gannet-life, both domestic and public. On Nepean and Phillip Islands, in the 
Norfolk-Island group, I used to find the fond mother sitting affectionately by the side of the snow- 
white fluff she called her child (paterfamilias having made himself scarce long before we reached the 
party) till I was within two or three yards of her, when she solemnly disgorged the two fish she had 
been cooking in her throat for her darling’s supper, and followed her mate’s example. These two 
fish on Nepean Island were nearly always a species of anchovy with the brown line of flesh, or fish, 
strongly marked ; they were closely pressed together, and had evidently undergone a process of 
maceration if not of digestion. The New-Zealand Sitla, like his Maori fellow-countryman, is of a 
most war-like nature, and fights fiercely for the sanctity of his nursery. I once saw the most stout- 
hearted of British skippers fairly driven off a rookery of them with his breeks in rags and tatters and 
his legs in holes, positively obliged to retreat and arm himself with a big stick before he could make 
his ground good. Even after the old birds were driven off, we had to walk warily amongst the sharp- 
billed Powder-puffs, as they never missed a chance of giving us a sharp prod if we came within their 
reach.” 
Colonel Haultain informs me that on the occasion of a visit to White Island, in the Bay of 
Plenty, on Christmas day, he found thousands of young Gannets there. They were clothed in down, 
and were packed so closely together, that it was almost impossible to distinguish the occupant of any 
single nest. The old birds manifested no fear at the presence of man, and, where they were sitting on 
their eggs, required to be fairly pushed off before they would quit the nest. On being thus disturbed, 
or when fighting with one another, they utter a gurgling cry, like Jco-wacJc, Jco-wacic, but habitually 
they are silent. It may be here mentioned that White Island is the top of a submerged volcanic cone, 
in the centre of which there is a deep lake of hot water, like a vast cauldron, constantly emitting 
steam, with occasional outbursts of boiling water rising to the height of several hundred feet. In the 
vicinity of this lake there are numerous round holes, in which boiling mud is kept in violent agitation ; 
and the surface of the ground round these geysers is covered with great masses of crystallized sulphur, 
deposited by the heated vapours. Altogether the island is a very remarkable geological curiosity ; and, 
considering its normal heat and the sulphurous state of its atmosphere, it seems a singular spot to be 
chosen as a nesting-ground. 
Off the Kawhia shore, on the opposite or west coast (about halfway between Manukau and 
Taranaki), there is a bare rock, known to sailors as Gannet Island, where another extensive breeding- 
place exists. My son Percy visited this place in December 1883, in the Government steamboat 
‘ Hinemoa,’ but owing to the heavy sea he was unable to land. Passing, however, close alongside, he 
was able to make some observations, of which he has furnished the following note : — 
* ‘ South-Sea Bubbles,’ by the Earl and the Doctor, p. 65. 
