THE GANNETS. 
219 
green at the base; bare space round the eyes, lines on the bill, 
and gular space black; feet brownish-black, the scales light 
greenish-blue or emerald-green ; claws greyish-white ; iris pale 
yellowish-white. Total length, 33 inches; culmen, 3'85; wing, 
i 8'4; tail, 8'3 ; tarsus, 2'i. 
Adult Female. — Similar to the male. 
Young Birds. — When first hatched the nestlings are bare and 
slaty-black in colour, with the bill and naked region of the eye 
black. As they progress they become covered with dense 
white down. The full plumage of the young bird is greyish- 
brown, spotted with white, each feather having a triangular 
spot at the end, these spots being very numerous on the head 
and neck; the bastard-wing, primary-coverts, and quills are 
blackish, rather more ashy on the inner webs, the innermost 
secondaries tipped with white ; tail-feathers black, with white 
shafts; throat greyish -brown, spotted with white like the upper 
surface ; remainder of under surface of body dull white, mottled 
with ashy-grey, with which colour the feathers are tipped ; 
under wing-coverts blackish, spotted with white. After the 
second moult they become more uniform below', and the head 
and neck are mottled with white, and, according to Mr. See- 
bohm, the white colour gradually predominates after the third 
and fourth moults, until the full white plumage is assumed 
after the fifth moult. 
Eange in Great Britain. — Although the (lannet occurs on all 
our coasts, the breeding-places are confined to a few colonies, 
the only one in England being on Lundy Island, but another 
exists on the island of Grassholme, off the Pembrokeshire 
coast. In Scotland the best-known places are Ailsa Craig and 
the Bass Rock ; and other breeding colonies are at Boreray in 
the St. Kilda group, Sulisgeir or North Barra, and the stack of 
Suleskerry, about forty miles west of Stromness. These are 
all the places mentioned by Mr. Howard Saunders in his latest 
work. In Ireland, Mr. Ussher says, the principal breeding- 
place of the species is the Little Skellig, off Kerry, but a con- 
siderable colony also exists on the Bull Rock, off Cork, as was 
recorded in 1868 ; and notwithstanding that a lighthouse has 
now been erected there since 1884-85, the number of nests is 
estimated at from one hundred and eighty to two hundred by 
