'xmmtg0^ M- 7. i ^-,0 o FOR THE PEOPLE FOR EDVCATION FOR SCIENCE LIBRARY OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY BY GIFT OF ANSON W. HARD THE G A N N E T THE GAIN NET A I'.llil) WIT 1 1 A ILISTOllY BY J. H. GURNEY, F.Z.S. A^ithor of "A Catalogue of the Birds of Prey (Accipitres and Striges), with the number of Specimens in Norwich Museum" ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS PHOTOGRAPHS, MAPS AND DRAWINGS, AND ONE COLOURED PLATK BY JOSEPH WOLF WITflERBY & CO. 32G HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON 1913 /^.t, ^y*^t '^irHr TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE PEOFESSOR ALFRED NEWTON OF CAMBRIDGE AND OF MARTIN MARTIN WHO WROTE ONE OF THE BEST ACCOUNTS OF THE GANNET THE PRESENT CONTRIBUTION TO THIS REMARKABLE BIRd's HISTORY IS HERE INSCRIBED, IN TESTIMONY OF THE VALUE WHICH THE WRITINGS OF THESE TWO NATURALISTS HAVE BEEN TO ONE OF THEIR SUCCESSORS. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface ----.. . xTJi NOTANDA AND CoRRIGENDA - - - - xlvH. Introduction ---..... i Bibliography .... - 13 CHAPTER I. Names of the Gannet -----■■ 17 Names applied to the Gannet — Norse Names — Gaelic Names — Origin of the name " Gannet " — Oi-igin of " Solan " — Professor Skeat's Explanation of it — Paucity of Infor- mation Ijefore the Sixteenth Century — Representations by the Early Writers not to l)e commended. CHAPTER II. Distribution of the Gannet -.-... 33 Geographical Distribution of the Gannet — Its Distribution in Winter — Not the same as in Simimer — Its fifteen Breed- ing Places — Nine of which are in the British Isles — All, except one, being on the West Coast. CHAPTER III Lundy, Grassholm, Skellig - - . - 42 Lundy Island — Notices of the Gannet in Rolls of the Thir- teenth Century — Their disastrous fate on Lundy which might have been averted — Grassholm Island on the Welsh Coast — Origin of its Gannetry not known — -Irish Stations —The Little Skellig— The Bull Rock. CHAPTER IV. AiLSA Craig _ . . 75 Ailsa Craig, on the coast of Ayrshire — The Early History of its Gannets — The present State of the Settlement — Fish eaten by Gannets — -Remains of 73 dead Gannets — Number of Gannets at the present time on Ailsa. viii THE GANNET CHAPTER V. St. Ktlda, Sulisgbir, The Stack - - - - 116 The St. Kilda group of Islands— Borrera, Stack Lii, Stack an Armine — Early History^Fewer Gannets taken than formerly — Martin's estimate of their Numbers — Dr. Wiglesworth's estimate — Sulisgeir — Its Early History — Mr. Harvie-Brown's visits — The Stack of Suleskerry — Visited by Harvie-Brown in 1887, and by Newton in 1890. CHAPTER VL The Bass Rock ------ 167 The Bass Rock — History of its Gannets from Early Times • — As bequeathed to us by Historians and Travellers — Beginning with the " Scotichronicon " in 1447 — Quotations from Authors, and Criticisms on their Credibility. CHAPTER VII. The Bass I^^ock— continued ------ 221 History of the Bass Rock continued — Its Gannets in Modern Times — Former Extent of their breeding Area — Compared with its present Extent — Number of the Gannets now and formerly — The Letting Value of the Bass Rock — Ray, Willughby and other Naturalists who have visited the Bass. CHAPTER VIII. Gannets in the F.eeoes and Iceland - - - 259 Gannets' Breeding-places continued — Myggenaes in the Fferoes — Number of Gannets there — The Three Icelandic Settlements — Quotations from the Icelandic Naturalists, Olafsen, Mohr, Faber — Probable Number of Gannets in Iceland. CHAPTER IX. Gannets on the Coast of Canada - - - . 289 Gannets in Canada — Jacques Cartier's Discovery of their Breedmg-place — Audubon, the Naturalist Painter — History of Bird Rocks and Bona^'enture, supplied by Mr. F. M. Chapman, Mr. A. C. Bent and ]\Ir. H. K. Job — Estimates of Numbers at these places — Great Manan and Perroquet no longer occupied by Gannets. CONTENTS ix. CHAPTER X. Abandoned Breeding -places - - - - - 314 Former Breeding-places now no longer inhabited — Alleged Breeding-sites of the Gannet in England — In Scotland — In Ireland — And on the Coast of Canada. CHAPTER XI. Estimated Number of Gannets - ... 322 An Estimate of the Gannet Population — Compared with what is known about other Birds — Lack of definite Statistics — A Census Jolui Wolley's idea — Puffins the most abundant of all Sea-birds at the present Tin\e. CHAPTER XII. NlDIFICATION AND InCUBATION - - - - 333 Habits of the Gannet during its nidification — Incubation — Duration of incubatory Period — William Evans's experi- ments— Absence of a Hatching-spot not hitherto noticed except by Faber — The Gannet's Egg. CHAPTER XIII. The Nestling ------- 359 Hatching and Rearing of the Nestling — Young Gannets — Their Ways and Manners as they advance to maturity — The Periods of a Young Gannet's Existence — Its Flight out to Sea. CHAPTER XIV. Habits of Gannets ------- 370 The Gamiet's Habits — Its affectionate Disposition — The Cause of its Gaping — Selous's theories — Its Discordant Cries — An Imitation of the Elements — Its hours of Sleep. CHAPTER XV. Food and Fishing -.-.-.- 386 Habits of the Gannet contiiuied — Its Food — -The amovuit of Fish required — Its methods of Fishing — When Plunging — When Feeding on Fry — IMr. Eagle Clarke's observations. X. THE GANNET CHAPTER XVI. Flight - - - - ----- 407 The Depth to which Gaiiiiets can dive — -Their Progress in Water and on Land — Their Flight — Movements con- trolled by Wind — Migration Statistics collected for Mr. Harvie-Brown. CHAPTER XVII. Mortality among Gannets - . . . 427 The Liability of all Birds to Accidents — ^Mortality among Gannets — Sluggishness of the Gannet — Accidents to which Gannets are liable — Plunging into Boats, etc. CHAPTER XVIII. Considerations as to the Age of Gannets - - 449 Ages attainable Ijy Birds — By Gannets in Particular — Traditions about it at the Bass Rock — Lack of Relial)le Statistics — Mr. C. J. Maynard's Evidence by Dissection. CHAPTER XIX. Gannets as Food 453 The Uses to which Gannets have been put — Employed as Human Food — Their Grease a Medical Unguent, classed with that of Bausones (Badgers) — Their Eggs eaten — Their Feathers made into Beds and Cushions. CHAPTER XX. Plumage - - 473 The Gannet's Plumage — Description of the Nestling — Of the Yomig — Of the Tntermediate Stages — Of the Adult — Opinions of Macgillivray, Ogilvie-Grant, Seebohm, and Howard Saunders — Period of Moult — Pterylosis — Weight of a Gannet. CHAPTER XXL Osteology - 499 The Gannet's Skull — Beak — Vertebral Column — Sternum — Coracoid Bones — Clavicles — Pelvis — Wing- and Leg-Bones — Feet and Claws. CONTENTS XI. CHAPTER XXII. Anatomy ----.--.. 5x7 The Subcutaneous Air-cells — Cellular Tissue — The Oeso- phagus — Intestines — Trachea — Tongue — Eye — Brain — Ear — Oil-gland. APPENDICES. A. — Allied Species of Gannet ----- 541 B. — The Tropical Boobies - - . _ 549 C. — The Parasites of Gannets 553 D. — Historic and Prehistoric Remains - - - 558 E. — Fossils (Tertiary) of Sula ----- 560 Index - - - - . _ . . 551 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS. PAGE Map of the World to show Distribution of the SuLiD.E ------ Frontis'piece Sula capensis at Ichabo — F. G. -Abbott, PJwt. - - xlv, Gesner's Figure of a Gannet in the " Historia Animalium," 1555, copied by E. Wilson - - 29 Bishop Pontoppidan's Figure, 1753, copied by E. Wilson 31 Map showing the Distribution of the Gannet in Winter 34 Map showing the Distribution of the Gannet in Summer - - - - - - - - - • 38 Map showing the Breeding-places in the British Isles -..-_--_- 40 "Extent" of the Isle of Lundy, 1274 (fro7n a Photo- graph) -------- face 43 Inquisitiox P.m. Edward I. {transcript) - - face 44 Inquisition P.M. Edward II. {transcript) - - face 45 Map of Lundy Island ------ ^ 47 The Gannet Rock, Lundy 51 Maps of Grasholm - 54, 55 Grasholm Island — J. H. G. - - - - 56 Gannets on Grasholm Island 57 Map of the Coast of Kerry ----- 02 The Lesser Skbllig — Barrett-Hamilton. Phot. - - 63 The Lesser Skellig from North-east — J. H. G. - 65 Gannets on the Skellig — A. Delap, Phot. - - ■ 67 The Bull Rock 72 Map of the Coast of Ayrshire ----- 76 ILLUSTRATION»S xiii. Map of Ails a Craig - " - - 77 AiLSA Craig (compared to Pennant's Plates in 1772) — C. Kirk, PJiot. 89 Gannets on the Main Craigs — Henry Gurney, Phot. • 91 Gannets ON THE Craigs — C. Kirk, P/ioi. - - • 93 Gannet ON its Nest — ^Henr}^ Gurney, Phot. - - - 96 Gannets on the West Cliff — Henry Gurney, Phot. 99 The West Cliff — Bentley Beetham, Phot. - ■ 100 AiLSA Gannets seen from above - - 113 Title-page OF " A Late Voyage to St. KiLD A " - - 119 Map OF THE St. Kilda Islands — ajter Martin - ■ 121 Map of St. Kilda Islands ------ 129 BoRRERA Stack — ajter Seton - ■ - - - - 130 Armine Stack 133 Noose used by Fowlers - .... 135 Lii Stack - - 137 Map of Sulisgeir and The Stack - - - - 151 " Solans' Rock " — W. Norrie, Phot. - . . . 155 The Stack— Dick Peddie, Phot. - - 159 The Stack — Drawn by J. Pedder {after J. A Harvie- Brown) - - - 161 The Bass Rock— W. Green, Phot ■ - - 166 Map of the Adjacent Coast . . - - 168 Map of the Bass Rock — The Ordnance Survey - - 169 Portrait of John Ray {from a picture in the British Museum) . . . . . - . 202 The Bass in 1690^i/vithout doubt than we have discovered at present. The Gannet is a bird for which I have had a partiality ever since I was a boy, or rather since my first visit to Ailsa Craig — which was with a friend no longer hving, forty -six years ago — and that to the famous Bass Rock, which was in 1876. Needless to say, I am far from behe\nng myself to be the only person who has experienced this feeling, for so notable a bird cannot fail to have impressed many other ornithologists who have watched its stately flight. My interest in it which, as I said, began early was greatly augmented by reading two historical essays — one of them by Professor Fleming, referred to on p. 169 of the present work, and one by Professor Cunningham (" Ibis," 1866, p. 1), both of which are of great merit. But apparently neither of these writers was aware of the admirable story of the Bass Gannets, told in " Historia Majoris Britannise " (1521) by one who was born near the Bass and whose narrative is quoted in full on pp. 173-6. xviii. THE GANNET As enquiries were pushed further into Gannet lore, the more stimulating did they become, and they were helped by a brisk correspondence with the late Professor Alfred Newton, who was not only extraordinarily well versed in every ornithological topic, but singularly ready to impart information to those who knew less than himself. Let us for a moment in imagination stand on the Bass Rock, where there have doubtless been Gannets for thousands of years, and where they have been seen by many naturalists oftener than I have seen them. Although there are not so many Gannets here as at St. Kilda, there is a vast number, yet the reader will hardly subscribe to Harvey's description of them on his visit in 1C41, when he says that " like a cloud they darken the sun " (p. 199). But certainly there have been moments in my own limited experience when I could say with Dunbar : — " The air was dirkit with the fouUs " and these fowls were nearly all Gannets. Noble birds they were, sometimes passing in their wheeling flight near enough to permit of every motion of the feet and tail, which act like a rudder, being seen. Under these circum- stances every undulation of those ponderous wings, which reach five and a half feet across and sometimes more, can be noted with ease. What a grand sight it is to watch one of these Gannets make its marvellous plunge, which I feel has been described very imperfectly in Chapter XV. Were it not so common a spectacle, there are many of its admirers who would be found to agree with William HISTORICAL PREFACE xix. Thompson in preferring it to the swoop of the Golden Eagle or the descent of the Peregrine Falcon on its quarry ("Natural History of Ireland," III., p. 257). Not less remarkable is the great depth to which they can dive in the pursuit of fish {see p. 407), although here it is possible there have been exaggerations. Then the details of their nidification are so curious, and the pertinacity very great with which they cling to their nesting stations ; these are all on islands, and in number very few compared with those of other birds. How often has the now proved habit of its covering its egg with its webbed foot — first noticed in 1535 by a Dane {see p. 181) — been denied, yet this mode of incubation once thought so incredible, is in reality not more wonderful than the means which many other birds adopt. Then again we mark their combativeness and thieving propensities, and take note of the long period of eight weeks during which the young remain practically helpless. Also there is the striking difference in colour between a young Gannet — which retains its black plumage for nearly a year — and an old one, which is white : a difference greater than obtains in almost any other bird. It is with pleasure that we turn to the Gannet's anatomy, where a fine field for research lies open. The naturalist looks at the totipalmate feet, the aborted tongue, the lack of nostrils, the subcutaneous air-cells, the prolongated sternum, the junction of the carina and the absence of a brood-spot, and reaHses that he has before him a marvel of bi id-life. Fortunately the osteology of the Gannet has had good investigators {see Chapter XXI.), but justice *n 2 XX. THE GANNET can hardly be said to have been done to its anatomy at present. Again, no httle antiquarian interest attaches to the Gannet, and this fact is brought vividly before the reader who dwells on the story of its early history at the Bass Rock, that mighty piece of Nature's handiwork. It was saleable as an article of food, its grease was thought to have medical properties, and was therefore valuable, and its feathers could be used for making beds. It is in a great measure to these combined circumstances, and especially to the value attached by our forefathers to its grease, which mixed Math that of Badgers and Boars {see p. 466) could cure the gout, that we owe the allusions to it by so many early Scottish travellers and historians, for in the fifteenth century nobody thought much of a bird which had neither an edible nor a medical value, unless it was of use for sport. As for the Gannet, the Royal patronage of Scotland was accorded to it, so highly was it appraised ; and the price charged for young ones from the Bass Rock was as much as two shillings a bird. All this is treated of in Chapter XIX. The first book on birds worthy to be called an ornithological work which mentions the Gannet, is Turner's classic. " Marina avis est ex venatu piscium victitans," he writes. In these concise terms the Northumbrian author of the " Avium Praecipuarum " (1544) characterises a bird which he could hardly have seen ahve, or he would not have said that in voice and aspect it recalled the Bernicle Goose. Next comes Q'urner's correspondent and friend, the illustrious Swiss physician Conrad Gesner, lost HISTORICAL PREFACE xxi. to Science by an earh- death at forty-nine. In the " Historia Animalium," of which Liber III., " de avium natura," was given to the world in L555, Gesner puts the Gannet after the Geese, but the alphabetical arrangement generally adopted by him prevented anything like systematic grouping, and immediately after the Gannet follows the Great Bustard. Gesner repeats what Turner and Hector Boece the historian had said of the Bass or Scotch Goose, but he was evidently unacquainted with the passage which refers to these birds in Major's " Historia Majoris Britannise " mentioned above, which had been published some thirty-four years previously. Scarcely less celebrated was the Fleming, de I'Escluse, better known as Carolus Clusius, whose account of the Gannet in the " Exoticorum Libri " (1005) has been referred to several times {see pp. 17, 30, 260), and it only needs to be remarked that in his figure, which was done from an American specimen, the convexity of the breast feathers is distinctly shoAvn. After Gesner, although tlie study of Ornithology was not at a standstill, there was nothing for a time written about the Gannet which could be called new. There is little that is worth quoting in the classical works of Jolin Caius (1570), and Ulisse Aldrovandi (1599-1603), and some later authors were content, for want of first-hand knowledge, to copy from one another. Neither have I thought it necessary to quote from Sir Robert Sibbald's two works, published in 1684 and 1710 (referred to on p. 30), in both of which he seems to have helped liimself freely from the MS. which John Blaeu had used in 1654. xxii. THE GANNET But, fortunately, there are journals preserved to us, which contain items of value about the Gannet, or " Sey guse," as it has been called, and the memoranda left in these by such travellers as Sir William Brereton (1634) and by such men of science as Bishop LesHe (1578), Harvey (I65I), and Ray (1661), tell us much wliich we should never have known without them. Besides the mention of the Gannet by Ray in his " Itineraries," namely, when he met with it off Godreve [Godrevy] Island in 1662 {see p. 387), as he had done the year before at the Bass Rock (p. 205), he and Willughby twice de- scribed it in their " Ornithologiae Libri Tres " (1676), a work which would have been lost to science but for Ray — or Wray, as he at one time wrote his name — and which has since proved a fertile source of information to mam^ subsequent writers. The second of these descriptions, however, which is taken from a bird sent to one of the authors by Dr. Walter Needham (" Ornithologia," p. 265, Enghsh edition, p. 348), was evidently not from a Gannet at all, but apparently was drawn up from a Great Skua {Megalestris catarrhactes). Here Ray drifts into a further mistake by not realising that the Cornish Gannet wliich he and Willughby had seen of? Godrevy in Cornwall, and the Solan Goose of Scotland were one and the same bird. It was an excusable error, but it brought on him the censure of Walter Moyle (" Works," 1726, I., p. 424), and a milder rebuke from Thomas Pennant (" British Zoology," II., p. 617). Further back, in their joint " Ornithology," we find a quoted description of " The Sula of Hoier," which, though Ray felt doubtful about it (" Ornithology," p. 331), HISTORICAL PREFACE xxiii. was in this instance taken from an unmistakeable Gannet not quite adult. Finally, we come to the best told story of all — save for some exaggeration in regard to numbers — Martin Martin's " A Late Voyage to St. Kilda," an island then almost unknown, where the Gannet was a staple article of food. The five or six-times reprinted narrative of this expe- dition, which was in 1697, ought to have made many English readers familiar with the name of Solan Goose, but it does not seem to have done so. That the discoveries, for such they may be termed, of Martin, who was a native of the Island of Skye {see p. 118), should be unknown to foreign scientists like the illustrious BufEon (1770-83) is not surprising, but that our own countrymen, Latham, Montagu, Selby, Macgilhvray, Yarrell, and Saunders should pass them unnoticed is very singular. In John Walker's " Essays on Natural History " (1808) there are some good notes which, like the observations of Martin, have been overlooked by English writers, if not by his own countrymen. Passing over Pennant's " British Zoology " (1766 and 1768), and a few allusions in the same author's "Tour in Scotland" (1771), to Gannets, there is nothing which calls for remark in Latham's " Synopsis " (Vol. III. 1785, Supplement 1787), or in the same author's " General History of Birds " 1821-8 ; but to George Montagu belongs the credit of describing the Gannet's remarkable subcutaneous air-cells (" Supplement to The Ornithological Dictionary," 1813). Strange to say, although a Devon- shire man, he did not know of the existence of the Gannetrj^ on Lundv Island ; but he lived in South Devon, which xxiv. THE GANNET more tlican serves to excuse him. In " The Gentleman's Magazine " for 1815 (Pt. II., p. 281) it is stated that more MSS. were in preparation at the time of Montagu's death, and these might contain something about Lundy and its Gannets, did we now possess them. Noteworthy for its vividness of description is the journal of John J. Audubon (1833), and not less meritorious are the posthumous notes of the St. Kilda minister Mackenzie (1841), to say nothing of the narratives of William Thompson (1851), Professor Macgillivray (1852), Henry Bryant (1860), Cunningham (1866), Booth (1883), F. M. Chapman (1900), and J. Wigles- worth (1903), and the returns made to Dr. Harvie-Brown by the Scotch lighthouse keepers. On page 13 an imper- fect attempt has been made to enumerate the books which treat of the Gannet, but it would take too long to give a complete bibliography^ The Latin nomenclature of the Gannet is fairly simple. Starting with the great reformer of Natural History, we find the Gannet wanting in the 9th and preceding editions of the " Systema Natur?e," but included in the 10th and 12th (1758 and 1766) — the latter being the last published under Linnseus's own supervision — in the genus Pelecanus where the few species known to Linnseus follow the Cormorants. In the 12th and 13th editions the great Swede gives {t.c, p. 217) a short but precise description of his Pelecanus hassanus, and adds : " Habitat in Pelago SeptentrionaH, vix., appropinquans littora per 2 miliaria ; indicat Halecum adventum, quem sequitur. Gentleman s Jaen von [ ? van] Gent dicta." The name of " Gentleman " Linnaeus probably took from Debes and that of " Jaen van Gent " from HISTORICAL PREFACE xxv. Frederick Marten's " Spitzbergen " (1675, p. 97). He then goes on to say that the Gannet is found " Insula Scotise Basse," and quotes a part of Harvey's description, which I have given (p. 198). The first naturahst to endow the Gannet with a generic name — Sulci — was Mathurin Brisson, who, in Newton's " Dictionary of Birds " (c/. Introduction, p. 9), is highly praised for the work he did. Scrupulously exact in differentiating species, whether in French or Latin, he at once saw the radical differences between the Gannet and the Pelican. The fruits of all his industry was an " Ornithologia," produced in 1760, the Latin portion of which was reprinted in 1763, and here we find the Gannet concisely described as " Snla Candida ; remigihus primaribus fuscis ; retricibus candidis . . . Sida Bassana," after the island with which it was generally associated. Commencing Avith Brisson the scientific synonymy of the Gannet is set forth in the present Avork on page 17, but it is to be found given in greater detail in the 26th volume of the " Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum " (1898) by Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, where also a great number of valuable references are added which it would occupy too much space to repeat here. The vernacular names of this bird are less important, but they are given in different languages, mostly expressive of the Gannet's habits, e.g. Harenguier (French)=Herring- fisher, and Mascato (Portuguese) = Plunger ; they will be found enumerated on p. 18. There is also another list of them in Dresser's " Birds of Europe " (Vol. VI., p. 181). There is one vernacular appellation wliich has xxvi. THE GANNET been a complete puzzle, that of Malagash, commonly applied to the South African Gannet (see p. 544). In the " NcAy English Dictionary " this is given as meaning a native of Madagascar, but Sula capensis is very rare in Madagascar, and is not known to breed there. Malagash is a name which is in universal use in Cape Colony, and as Mr. William Sclater has pointed out it is one possessed of considerable antiquity, being found in Peter Kolbe's " Caput Bonse Spei Hodiernum " (1719, p. 181). As regards its Enghsh name, the Gannet was generally termed a Solan Goose in common parlance in the British Isles, although Selby (1825-33) called it the Solan Gannet, in which he was followed by Macgillivray in his " Manual " (1846) ; but that appellation is unusual. Solan Goose is the name employed by Thomas Pennant in four editions of his " British Zoology," a book which was so popular that six editions were called for, and in which there is a good account of the Gannet (8vo ed., 1776, II., p. 612), and a picture by George Edwards of the bird in the act of plunging. In the fifth edition (1812), however, Mr. W. H. Mullens informs me the name is changed to Gannet Corvorant. The many ways in which Solan has been spelled have been commented upon (p. 26), and the conclusions of Professor Skeat quoted. It should be pointed out, however, that Solamosse geese in the " Household Books of Naworth Castle " (p. 196) may have been tame Geese sent from Solway Moss, and not Gannets (H. S. Gladstone in "Scottish Naturalist" 1912, p. 90). If not a copyist's error, the word is misleading (c/. "Ann. Scot. N. H." HISTORICAL PREFACE xxvii. 1911, p. 76). For more information as to the etymology of the word Solan, see Skeat's " Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language " (1901) and the Oxford "English [Murray's] Dictionary" (1913), for an advance copy of which [art. Solan) I am indebted to Mr. W. A. Craigie. Probabty the earliest use of " Solan " is to be met with in the " Cupar Codex " {i.e., dr. 1447) b}^ Abbot Bower {see p. 171), and about the same time the word occurs in the " Buke of the Howlat [i.e., Owlet]," by Sir R. Holland {see p. 27), a curious poem which brings in the names of birds. EarUer than this no instance has been met with, but the word Solan is probably much older than the fifteenth century. In the Faeroes " Sule " has been a household word ever since a certain sorcerer lived who, it is affirmed, presented this valuable bird to the inhabitants of Myggenaes ! ! * Some of these legends are of great antiquity, and this one may be of the fifteenth century ; in Iceland the name Sula goes back as far as that {see p. 271). In Norw^ay Sule or Sula is also a name of considerable standing. I learnt from the late Professor Collett that Sula is used in Ign. Ramus 's " Norviges Beskrivelse " (1715), and in 1753 we again meet with " Hav-Sule " in Erich Pontop- pidan's " Norviges Natural Historic." In Denmark the Gannet is also known as the " Havsula." A word of explanation seems necessary as to why I have thought it best to adhere to the name of Gannet in preference to Solan Goose throughout this book. It has been employed * " The Islands and Inhabitants of Foeroe," by L. Jacobron Debes, 167 3, englished by J. S[terpin] l(i7(5 (p. 183). xxviii. THE GANNET as being the name most familiar to Englishmen and also as the one selected by Professor Newton, whom it is generally safe to follow ; but Solan Goose is strictly correct, and is an appellation by which this bird has long been widely known in Scotland. Gannet Ave are prone to look upon as a book-name ; but it is much more than that, being a name of great antiquity since it was used by the Saxon chroniclers. With regard to its signification,, perhaps enough has been said on pp. 22, 23, 24 ; and as to the spelling of the word, the Oxford " English [Murray's] Dictionary " (1901), gives the following forms : — Gannet (gse'ne't). Forms : ganot, ganate — ette, gannett (gannard), ganet, gannet, gante, gaunt, gaunte, gant. The Dictionary states the Old English (janot to be cognate with the Dutch gent : Middle High German ganiz, genz : Old Teutonic types ganito, ganoto. I have quoted what Professor Skeat says about it (p. 22), but a few additional remarks may not be out of place. Writing from Cambridge in 1908, he says : " There is not the faintest pretence for alleging doubt as to the etymology of the gan — in gan-der, gan-net, gan-s, it is obviously = ghan, in the Greek %av, — to gape, which as Prellwite explains in his " Etymological Greek Dictionary," admits of the suffix — ysiv or — isiv ; and by usual Greek laws, the original form %av — mv becomes ^ciivsiv regularly ; as avt passes into — a»v — . The base — ^av — has a variant with /o?i<7 «. This gives ;i^av, which is the old Doric form of the Attic ^-^v, a goose," Tame geese do open their mouths a great deal and Gannets still more so, gaping when they cry, or for food, or HISTORICAL PREFACE xxix. sometimes for no obvious reason at all ; the bird that opens its mouth, is rather an appHcable description of Geese and Garmets than otherwise. Chapter XVII. treats of a very obscure subject, namely the great mortahty which there certainly is among Gannets, not of nesthng Gannets, a few of which no doubt die in their nests from sunstroke and lack of food, but of rather older birds. The greatest number of deaths appears to take place among the Gannets when they are in the speckled black plumage of their immaturity, and there can be little question that tliis mortality goes on almost entirely between the ages of two months and six months. During that period, there is an interval of four or five weeks when young Gannets get little or no fish- food, and it may be that, being left to provide for themselves, many subsequently die from the effects of this enforced -fast. Possibly the death-rate is equally high among the young of other birds, either about this time, or at some younger age. It is not to be sup- posed that the Gannet is singular in this respect and other sea-birds — e.g. Cormorants and Guillemots — ^immune. If one reflects about the matter, there must be a measure of mortahty dealt out to all species, for if the majority of young birds did not die, the species would in every case increase too fast. Take the House-Sparrow (Passer domesticus) for instance : England would be over-run with them, if they all came to maturity ! Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, in a paper to be referred to later on, takes this common bird for an example, remarking XXX. THE GANNET that : "If every pair of sparrows alive in London at the beginning of the breeding season displayed maximum fertility, a death-rate of about 90 per cent, per annum would be necessary to keep the sparrow population stationary " (" Proceedings of the Zoological Society," 1911, p. 426). This is no exaggeration of the case, and what apphes to the House-Sparrow applies in a less measure to the Gannet. Charles Darwin has touched on this subject with his usual perspicuity : " Every organic being," he says, " naturally increases at so high a rate, that if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair." (" The Origin of Species," 1st ed., p. 64). See also his illustration of this proposition in the case of that familiar household bird, the Robin, in " Foundations of The Origin of Species " (p. 89). Connected with the question of Gannet mortality, although in no way explanatory of it, is that of the average age to which Gannets live, and tliis is a matter in which the more we can get away from the region of guess-work, the more chance there is of arriving at something definite about a subject which has baffled scientists from the days of Lord Bacon. Some very imperfect remarks have ])een made about it in Chapter XVIIL, to which I need not again refer. In this connection there is one point which has to be remembered, Gannets are very liable to accidents, even after they have passed the first six critical months, as has been shown in Chapter XVII. The per- centage of Gannets which groAvs up, attains maturity and ultimately dies a natural death, must be exceedingly small ; I doubt its being one per cent. ; but then it may well HISTORICAL PREFACE xxxi. be that this one Gannet reaches a very advanced age — one, two, or three hundred years ! This has been justly spoken of by authors as the potential longevity of- a species, which is a very different thing from the average length of a bird's life. A Gannet which has escaped all dangers for a hundred years is an exemphfication of potential longevity ; it has, as Dr. Chalmers Mitchell puts it, been fortunate enough to go through life in an environment relatively ideal. Such birds can have little or no effect on the good of their species, the welfare of which is governed by, and dependant upon, the average age to which its members attain. Let us consider what knowledge we possess in this matter, albeit it is assumption with which we have to be content, rather than actual knowledge. To begin with, we are surely justified in assuming that where there is a heavy mortality among the young of a species, as is evidently the case with the Gannet, we may look for long duration of life. This would have to be so in order to ensure replace- ment of the parent Gannets by successfully-reared young ones. August Weismann held that the duration of a bird's life was determined by the length or shortness of the period needed to rear enough offspring to perpetuate the race (" Ueber das Dauer des Lebens," 1881 ; translation " Essays upon Heredity," 1889), yet on the other hand there must not be too many young reared, to maintain about the same numerical level year by year. There are at least six other reasons for holding the Gannet to be a bird which can live for manv vears. xxxii. THE GANNET First we have the long standing legend at the Bass Rock that Gannets habitually attain to a great age (pp. 176, 451-2), a legend ^vhich we may be sure has not held its own for four hundred years without a measure of truth in it. Secondly it has been argued that an inert and sluggish bird lives longer than one which is active, because there must be less waste in its organism ; this does not seem an unreasonable proposition, and accordingly the Gannet, which is a sluggish bird, sliould be long-lived if this holds good. Thirdly, long brood-care has been thought to stretch out the duration of life, and here again the Gannet scores. It has also been reasonably suggested that where the period of growth is long (seventy days in the Gannet), that in itself may imply long duration of a bird's life. It has likewise been argued that birds which lay only one egg must of necessity live longer than those wliich lay a great many. The Partridge, for example, begins to lay at one year old and deposits fourteen eggs, whereas the Gannet begins to lay at three years, and deposits only one egg ; the Gannet therefore should be much the longer- lived bird of the two. Again, a Gannet is a very hardy bird, exceedingly well clad with close-fitting thick feathers adapted to the elements in which it lives. It is not exposed to much frost, because frosts are not intense at sea, and no wind or rain seems to hurt it, so long as enough food is obtainable. Yet another reason why Gannets should be long-lived is urged by August Weismann in his treatise on the Duration HISTORICAL PREFACE xxxiii. of Life, but it can hardly be admitted as a tenable one. Knowing that a great many Gannets are bred at St. Kilda, and that the young were formerly killed there in large numbers for food — four thousand or more in a year — he infers therefrom that if the Gannet had not been a long- lived species, the stock must have declined. As a matter of fact the number of young Gannets killed there probably never greatly exceeded the number of young wliich survived, so the argument hardly holds. For the same reason the argument cannot be satisfactorily appUed either to the Fulmar Petrel or the Puffin. When the eighteenth chapter of this book was written, I had not had the advantage of reading the treatise by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, already alluded to, " On Longevity and Relative Viabihty in Mammals and Birds " (" Proc. Zool. Soc," 1911, p. 425) — a treatise which brings together records of the duration of bird-Mfe, including Gannets and other marine species. As regards the Gannets, the particulars given (pp. 5G6, 536) are on the whole dis- appointing. No case is recorded by Dr. Mitchell of Sula. hassana and 8. serrator having exceeeded a year and a half in captivity, but this is even a less time than *S'. hassana has lived on my small pond ; however S. leucogastra fBodd), the Brown Booby, was kept for three years and four months by the Zoological Society. But Gannets, like Pehcans, can evidently live much longer than this — of that we have in the case of the former fairly con- clusive proof. Besides the evidence which has been already adduced in Chapter XVIII. we have P. J. Selby's definite statement xxxiv. THE GANNET that individual Gannets had been recognised at the Bass for forty years (" British Ornithology," II., p. 458), a state- ment which in passing I may remark is misquoted by Morris in his " British Birds " (VI., p. 81), and by Dr. Richardson, copying from liim, in the " Guide to North Berwick." Selby also says that Patrick Neill, the botanist, kept a Gannet for many years in confinement at Edinburgh. Altogether a hundred and sixty five examples are given in Dr. Mitchell's paper to illustrate the average length of life of the Steganopodes in captivity, and Dr. Mitchell feels himself justified in concluding that they are a group possessed of great longevity and viability, especially the PeHcans. In another place he also says, " there seems no constitutional reason to assign a low viability to Gannets and Cormorants " {t.c, p. 536), and such evidence as we have fully justifies this supposition. Following in the steps of Weismann, Dr. Mitchell first discusses the question whether there is, or is not, any correlation between longevity and the size of animals. Here, if there was any, the Gannet would have an advantage but Dr. Mitchell is forced to conclude that among Birds, at any rate, this is a theory only at present, and one which must not be pressed too far until we know more about it. Weismann, however, believed in some relation of the kind. Duration of life is dependant upon adap- tation to external conditions. That is the way in which Weismann puts it, and its length whether longer or shorter is governed by the needs of the species, and this sums up the matter as far as our knowledge at present takes us. It may not be to the advantage of the Gannet, as a HISTORICAL PREFACE xxxv. species, that individuals should live too long, old age would be accompanied by weakness, and that species ought to be the most successful which has in its ranks the most vigorous adults. As soon as a Gannet ceases to produce offspring, or only begets weakly ones, it is for the good of the race that it should perish, for the reproduction of its land is the aim and purpose of every animal's life. In every settlement of Gannets there are said to be a certain number of these old and barren birds Avhich live apart. It is hardly to be expected that one writer could do justice to such an extraordinary bird as the Gannet single- handed, and I have had help on all hands, for which I am very grateful. In particular my Father's valued friend, and my most kind correspondent, the late Professor Alfred Newton — a Suffolk man, although best known as of Cambridge — ^rendered invaluable assistance during the last four years of his Hfe, which terminated at the age of seventy-eight, to the regret of zoologists of every nation, on June 7th, 1907. I am glad to say I was privileged to be one of those who paid a final tribute of respect to his memory on June 10th, in St. Giles's Church, Cambridge. By a coincidence the 7th was the day on which the bicentenary of the birth of the great reformer of Natural History, Linneeus was being celebrated, a man whom in his devotion to natural science, as Avell as in his methodical habits of registering Natural History observations, it may be truly said that Newton from an early age not a little resembled, in proof of which I need only point to the elaborate ornithological " Register-book" *c2 xxxvi. THE GANNET kept by him and his brother at Elveden ("Norwich Naturahsts' Trans : " 1870-1, i)p. 24-32). It has been well said of Alfred Newton that he held a unique position among zoologists in this country. This was so, and there are many who can testify to the literary help which he was always ready to give. In the furtherance of our Gannet researches, his Hberality in lending books and pamphlets from his well-stocked shelves — one of the best bird-reference libraries ever brought together — was as great as his readiness to translate passages from Icelandic and Latin authors, which bore upon the Gannet's history. I owe him all the more thanks because he was at the time when I applied to him for assistance with this Gannet book , busily putting together materials, which it had taken him years to collect, for a History of the Great Auk, seven eggs of which extinct bird he bequeathed to the University Museum at Cambridge. On turning over the many letters which, though busy to the last, he found time to write, I see that the final one — received on May 6th, 1907, less than a month before his death— has reference to the Gannetries in Canada. As it is an interesting letter, and his last, I hope it will be no breach of confidence to transcribe a part of it : after expressing regret at the loss of one of the unpinioned Gannets on my pond, which had taken advantage of a gale of wind to fly away, he continues, in answer to a question about his eggs : — "... My series of Gannets' eggs is certainly good, but it is not what it ought to be, for Stack of Stack and Skerry is not represented, and one does not know from HISTORICAL PREFACE xxxvii. which of the three stations in the St. Kilda group the specimens so marked came — Borreray, Stack-Lii, or Stack- an-Armin, but probably the first as being the most accessible. There must be a good manj^ specimens about from Stack of Stack and Skerry ... in his later years, the younger Dunn (Joseph) used to go there every season, but neither H B— — nor W. E. C was able to find me one. It is to you that I owe the Irish specimens and I am very lucky to get any from Eldey. I cannot make out exactly how many American stations there are left — the destruction of birds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and both coasts of Labrador seems to have been more desperately cruel and useless than anywhere else in the world. I have been lately working out a good many of the old voyages into these parts — my object of course has been the ' Penguin ' — but one does meet with the Margaulx (Gannet) also — though how many stations it has I cannot make out." The slaughter meted out to the unfortunate Gannets and other sea-birds, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was a topic which had fired his indignation before, and been condemned in previous correspondence, see also liis allusion in the " Dictionary of Birds " (p. 301) to what he calls " the brutality of the fishermen." Nor will this attitude sur- prise any one who knew Professor Newton, for in truth he was constantly in the hsts fighting in the cause of Bird-protection . What this destruction was eighty years ago may be judged from the particulars obtained by Audubon, when he visited the celebrated Bird-Rocks in 1833. He found that the Labrador fishermen were in the habit of regularly xxxviii. THE GANNET visiting tliis great resort of Gannets to procure their flesh for bait, armed with short clubs for the purpose of killing them. The frightened birds, prevented from rising into the air bj^ their long wings, impeded each other's progress, by which numbers were overtaken and forced to the ground, the men beating and killing old and young with their clubs until too fatigued to go on any longer. Audubon's pilot, who had been to the Gannet Rock ten seasons in succession, had seen six men destroy five hundred and forty Gannets in about an hour by clubbing them, after which the party rested awhile. So great was the massacre of Gannets which went on upon this island of destruction, that their flesh supplied upwards of forty boats, wliich annually came to Brion Island for the cod-fishing, Avith bait. For these facts see Audubon's " Journals " published by his daughter and Elhott Coues in 1898, and the " Ornithological Bio- graphy " (Vol. IV., p. 224). Other species of birds were doubtless killed as well, but the Gannets which nested on the flat upper surface of the Bird-Rocks were the easiest to capture, next to the flightless Gare-FoAvl which had supplied Hakluyt's voyagers in the sixteenth century, but were now become rare. Gannets also bred on Funk Island, which is further north, and here, says George Cartwright, " It has been customary of late years for several crews of men to live all summer on that island, for the sole purpose of killing birds for their feathers ; the destruction Avhich the}'^ have made is incredible." (" . . . The Coast of Labrador," 1785, III., p. 55). But here the Great Auk was the chief sufferer. In 1874, Funk Island was visited by Professor John Mihie, and in July, 1887, by Mr. F. A. HISTORICAL PREFACE xxxix. Lucas, who has left a full account of what he saw. The latter says : " After the extermination of the Great Auk, the fishermen and eggers seem to have done their best to extirpate the remaining denizens of this isolated spot, and it may well be that the Gannets were as effectually anni- hilated as the unfortunate Garefowl." (" The Auk," 1888, p. 135.) Neither did they fare much better on Bona venture {see p. 308). But for Professor Newton a similar destruction might have overtaken the Gannets in Scotland, as a sequel to the injudicious report issued in 1878, by the Scottish Herring-fishery Commissioners. The conclusions of the Commissioners have been dealt with elsewhere (pp. 6-11), but the Report might have done incalculable harm. As it happened a letter which Newton addressed to " The Times " newspaper, saved the situation. This letter which was afterwards reprinted by the Close -Time Committee, with the signature of their acting secretary Mr. Dresser, had sufficient weight with our legislators to save the country the committal of an act of great folly, and the Gannets on our shores were saved. I hope they may never again have need of such advocacy, nevertheless the question of whether Sea-birds lessen the supply of fish which man needs for his own consumption will come up from time to time, and there is but one vahd answer to it. The answer is that herrings, mackerel, wliiting, etc., are innumerable ; moreover their fecundity is almost immeasurable : in a word, there are and probably always wiU be fish enough for man and the birds too. In 1881, Professor Huxley wrote : " I do not beheve that all the xl THE GANNET herring fleets taken together destroy 5 per cent, of the total number of herrings in the sea in any year ..." and in another place he says : "... there is not a particle of evidence that anytliing man does [such as destroying Sea-birds] has an appreciable influence on the stock of herrings " (" Scientific Memoirs," IV., p. 553) ; and here we have the dictum of a great authority. Allusion has already been made to the prodigious number of herrings caught in the North Sea between 1902 and 1907, and there has been no abatement. In 1912 the number landed at Yarmouth and Lowestoft beat all records, over thirteen hundred and sixty- one million being brought into these two ports alone. {See T. J. Wigg, "Zoologist," 1913, p. 72, and "The Fish Trades Gazette" of December 12th, 1912.) Besides the services already mentioned. Professor Newton was at no small pains in helping to unearth the present whereabouts of the documents relating to the Gannets on Lundy Island, in the Bristol Channel. These have been given in Chapter III., but as they are of pre-eminent interest, it may not be out of place to say a few more words about them before closing. These " Inquisitions " or inventories as we should call them now, were ordered to be made when the island escheated to the Crown in the reign of Edward I,, and again when Herbert de Marisco " recovered it " from de Wyllyngton. At that time the island was evidently well cultivated : to say nothing of the Gannets and other edible birds, there were upon it twenty acres of arable land, besides five acres of good meadow, and grazing for cattle. In time the " Inquisitions " HISTORICAL PREFACE xli. were put aside, and having no value as conveyances of land became buried among the Archives of the State, until an industrious antiquary, Mr. F. D. Hardy, dug them up and communicated them to " Collectanea Topographica," which is the only work in which they have been printed. The search for the originals, which Professor Newton thought it highly desirable should be re-examined, gave a good deal of trouble, until Dr. Birch suggested my applying at the Record Office, in Chancery Lane, where they were soon run to ground. It was worth the labour, although there was nothing more about Gannets than Hardy and Steinman had given us. Here we have the oldest record of any bird's breeding- place in the British Isles, with the exception of sundry eyries of the Peregrine Falcon specified in Domesday Book which was completed in 1086. There are also, it is true. Heronries of great antiquity, but none — not even Chilham in Kent, or Wormegay in Norfolk (" Norw. N. Tr.," VI., p. 169) — can show such a pedigree as the Lundy Gannets. 1274 is indeed a long way back. Even at that time it is to be inferred that the Gannets on " petra gane- torum " — the isolated rock at the north-east end of the island — ^were not very numerous, as their value was only reckoned by the assessor as equal to a hundred rabbit- skins. Evidently the " butcher falcons " were thought more of, and indeed Lundy Peregrines are still famed for their courage and splendid qualities (c/. " Field," 1891, p. 715). Some forty-seven years later, however, the Gannets had risen in value, and in spite of marauding Scots, they xlii. THE GANNET had extended their breeding-ground to two places on the cUffs. A third inventory in 1325 again tells us of the — fotolcs h)I)icf) aicjcanlicr /:?ccbam callctb *ganimctics fairUcs babine crcat ncfitco," and after that we are left for a long time without further knowledge of them. In his " Lundy Island " — a book which has neither date nor index, but which appears to be an extension of a paper communicated to The Devonshire Association in 1875, and which at any rate from internal evidence was published after 1871 — the late Mr. John Roberts Chanter states (p. 138), that Gannets are continually referred to in the old records of Lundy but he only cites the same instances which Steinman gives. I have in vain searched the Rolls series of State Papers, but it seems quite likely that other references exist, even if Mr. Chanter did not know of them. It is sad to think that Lundy Island, with its old asso- ciations, which is — or rather was — the most southern of the Gannet's Old World breeding-places, is now forsaken. This breeding station was unknown to writers on British birds before Yarrell (1839), who doubtless took liis information from Edward Moore {Mag. Nat. Hist., 1837, p. 364). Lundy Island has had a long and romantic history, but it has been a history of freebooters, and outlaws, in which birds, although its very name is derived from one of them, have no part, and Gannets attracted but little attention. What can be gleaned of their modern history has been HISTORICAL PREFACE xliii. already told in chapter III., but it goes no further back than 1830. At this time there were still sixteen nests (p. 48), but things soon went from bad to worse, and 1882 is supposed to have been the last summer in which any were bred. In August, 1887, Mr. Howard Saunders, who was staying on the Island, was still able to write : " Lundy is much as it was ; more Gannets but their eggs are all taken, and not one hatched, this cannot be helped as they nest in such an accessible place from the water as well as the land . . . " {in litt.). 1903 seems to have been the last year in which any eggs were laid. Although we have lost the Gannets from Lundy Island, everyone will be glad to know that the parchment Inquisitions, which shed such an interesting light on their early history, are safe, and both of them in excellent preservation. By the courtesy of the ofhcials at the Record Office, Mr. H. F. Witherby has secured an admirable photograph of the earlier of the two, reproduced to face page 48. It was hoped that something similar might turn up about the Gannets on the Bass Rock, but Mr. John Anderson, who has very kindly made search among the writs and bulls in the General Register House at Edinburgh, has failed in discovering anything relating to the Bass earlier than 1493, so its Gannetry cannot compete with Lundy, although it may be older in reaUty. Other correspondents who have been good enough to take an interest in the Gannet book, and to assist, are the distinguished Scottish naturahsts, Mr. W. Eagle Clarke, of the Royal Scottish Museum, Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown, LL.D., and Mr. John Paterson of Glasgow, who have at xliv. THE GANNET much labour to themselves, criticised and been through the proofs. Mr. Harvie-Brown has also obUged me with a number of notes on Gannets from " The Scotsman " news- paper, by Mr. J. M. Campbell and others, which I hope may one day see the light in a separate book-form. Nor are my thanks less due to Mr. William Evans, of Edinburgh (especially regarding the Gannet's parasites), the Rev. H. N. Bonar of Saltoun, Colonel H. W. Feilden, Mr. W. H. Mullens, Mr. H. S. Gladstone, and Mr. H. F. Witherby, and particularly to that eminent etymologist the late Professor Walter Skeat, whose knowledge of the meaning of animals' names stood unrivalled. To Mr. Rothschild I am indebted for an opportunity of examining his great collection of Boobies at Tring, and to Mr. C. B. Ticehurst for a translation of H. C. Miiller's article on the Gannet, which is somewhat fuller than that by Professor Newton (p. 266), as well as for a series of Notes on Faeroe Gannets by Knud Andersen, extending from 1897 to 1902. Nor must I forget that several eminent men in the United States, including Mr. F. M. Chapman of New York, Professor Verrill, Mr. William Brewster, Mr. H. K. Job, and Dr. F. A. Lucas have courteously answered letters and queries. I need hardly add that Mr. W. P. Pycraft's great knowledge of comparative anatomy has been no small help, but it cannot be said that anything like a perfect description of the internal parts of the Gannet has yet been published. Through the kindness of friends I have collected a large series of Gannet photographs, from which those most suitable for publication have been selected, but no one has HISTORICAL PREFACE xlv. been able to secure a snapshot of a Gannet in the act of plunging, and this still remains a desideratum. My conscience pricks me with having occupied five hundred and sixty pages with the history of one bird, but I console myself with the reflection that had the bird been the Cuckoo or the Raven, the book would have been much longer. Keswick Hall, Norwich, May, 1913. J. H. G. '^ < r^. G. Abbott, Phot. SULA CAPENSIS AT ICHABO. NOTANDA AND CORRIGENDA. Page 3 line 18, after note, add and S. melanura. after shown, omit in Chapter XIII. 8 „ 7, for 30 read 100. for 50 read 200. „ 13 ,, 23, /or Faeroenes read Faeroernes. „ 18 „ 14, for 31 read 314. ,,21 ,, 25, omit the brackets. 26, „ „ ,, 25 ,, 6, for A better read Another. „ 26 ,, 21, add Sorland (Falle's " Jersey," 1694). ,, 27 ,, 8, In modern times the Soland Goose has not been a favourite with the poets ; Browning's allusion to it in " Para- celsus " is particularly unfortunate, but to Sir Walter Scott the bird was well known, and in " Marmion " we are introduced to : — " winter cheer Of sea-fowl dried, and solands store. And gammons of the tusky boar, And savoviry haunch of deer." " Marmion," Canto iii. and it plays a part in " The Antiquary," by the same author. ,, 27 ,, 10, for thu'teenth centiu-y MSS. read a thirteenth century MS. 13, after until the add mention in the. „ 30 „ 15, for 329 read 247. „ 33 „ 23, Mr. G. Damiani cites four occurrences of the Gannet in the Northern Adriatic, but one lacks confirnaation ("Rivista Italiana di Ornitologia," 1913, p. 92). „ 33 ,, 24, Considering that Sula bassana is only once known to have got as far as the coast of Syria, the idea that the Hebrew word shalach — translated Cormorant in Leviticus xi. 17 and Deuteronomy xiv. 17 — should be rendered Gamiet, is inadmissible. A Gannet was seen near Alexandria, by Mr. J. J. Neale on December 8th, 1912. ,, 3<) ,, 13, after Hyeres add where I examined two. „ 39 „ 2, for 45° S read 45° N. „ 39 „ 20, for VII. read IX. ,,41 ,, 11, /or Mygganaes read Mygganajs. „ 41 „ 12, for Sulusker read Westmann Islands. xlviii. THE GANNET Page 42 line 23, ajtcr 41(5 add " Itinerary " III. fol. . 14()). 8 THE GANNET must be done by the Gannet than by the Puffin, Guillemot, Cormorant, and Shag, because, though smaller birds, the numbers of these latter are far greater. There is no com- parison between the number of Puffins around the British Isles and the number of Gannets ; they would probably be as 30 to 1, or even as 50 to 1, for it is not improbable that the Puffin at the jDresent day is the most numerous of all British birds, the ubiquitous House-Sparrow excepted. (2) Then, again, Cetaceans, and all the larger fish, such as cod, ling, hake, dogfish and salmon, feed on herrings to a large extent. Frank Buckland and the other com- missioners held that the annual destruction of herrings by larger fish than themselves was something like 30,000 millions, twelve times as many as all the herrings caught by English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, and Norwegian fishermen put together (" Report," I.e., XL). This statement of the Commissioners is apparently no exaggeration. At any rate it received confirmation from Professor Huxley in a lecture on the herring in 1881, at which I was present. On that occasion Professor Huxley's words were that five million cod, ling, and hake had been taken by Scotch fishermen in one year (1879), and allowing these fish to have eaten two herrings a day, they would have consumed 3,500 millions.* It is therefore evident that these predacious fish take * The professor's addi-ess is re^jrinted in " Scien. Memoirs," IV., p. 490. INTRODUCTION 9 a much larger share than the Gannets. As Professor Huxley has well said, the Gannet is only one among a host of enemies with which the fish have to contend, and if we are to reduce the numbers of one enemy, to be consistent, we must reduce the numbers of all. But who is there, with a love of Nature in his soul, who will not agree that there are enough herrings in the sea for man and the birds too, and that for the sake of their beauty the Gannets are worth their share of them. (3) But the most potent argument in favour of the Gannet is that the breeding of sea-fish — e.g., herrings and mackerel — is almost without limit, and that being so, Gannets and other birds, and fish also, may eat almost any number they like, without appreciably diminishing the general source of supply. In support of this it would not be difficult to quote figures from several sources, but I will content myself with one, and that is the catch of herrings as taken from authorized returns, as issued from one port, that of Great Yarmouth. This is not the only port of our great east coast fishery, there are Lowestoft, Grimsby, and others, to say nothing of the Scotch ports, but Yarmouth has long been one great emporium of the trade. On November 13th, 1902, a single herring smack put into the port of Great Yarmouth Avith 396,000 herrings. Two days previously the fishing fleet had landed between 54 and 10 THE GANNET 55 millions. The total for this season (the best the Yar- mouth men had had up to that date) was subsequently published as 631,578,800 herrings. The next year it was 525,056,400, and in 1904 it was returned at 540,685,200 for this port alone, and be it remembered that a vast number of herrings were also landed at Lowestoft, Grimsby, Whitby, and other places. The year 1907 was again a very good one. In that season, on a single day — October 22nd — the North Sea Herring Fleet brought into Great Yarmouth between 5,000 and 6,000 " lasts." ^ Well might it be described in the " Eastern Daily Press " of October 23rd, and other newspapers, as an unparalleled delivery, nor was this glut of fish wasted, for, owing to the German trade, there was a brisk sale at once. (4) It must also be put down to their credit that Gannets are not infrequently of value to fishermen by pointing out the whereabouts of shoals of fish, which their marvellous sight enables them to detect with far greater quickness than our fishermen, who then shoot their nets accordingly. I * "Herrings are counted by the long hundred (132), therefore 0,000 lasts of 10,000 each would be 13,200 x 6,000 = 79,200,000 " (T. Southwell in Hit.}. " The toll taken by predacious fishes and birds," adds Mr. Southwell, who has long joaid attention to the ichthyology of the east of England, " may be taken as the natural check to overproduction ; the herring is so wonder- fully productive that without these checks tliey would eventually fill the sea, the fish -eating birds are therefore a positive benefit ! " INTRODUCTION 11 am told that in Cornwall, where the pilchard fishery is so important, the fishermen are specially alive to the Gannets' utility in this respect, and look upon them as allies rather than as rivals. (5) Again the fact must not be lost sight of that although no longer used as human food in the British Isles, young Gannets have in the past been an important article of consumption among the islanders of St. Kilda, and it is conceivable that they might become so again. This is putting the young to a legitimate use, and for such a purpose one must not grudge their being taken. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Published in Brisson, Ornithologie, VI., pp. 497 and 503, PL XLIV. (adult) 1760 Brisson, Ornith., Latin edition . . . . . . 1763 LiNN^us, Systema Naturae, 12tli ed. . . . . . . 1766 Lacepede and Daxjdin . . . . . . . . 1799 Montagu, Ornithological Dictionary, Supplement . . 1813 Faber, Prodromus der Islandischen Orn., p. 84 . . 1822 Faber, Isis, X., p. 705 1826 Selby, British Ornithology, II., p. 455 . . . . 1833 Gould, Birds of Europe, v., PI. 412.. .. .. 1837 Audubon, Ornithological Biography, IV., p. 222 . . 1838 Yarrell, British Birds, III., p. 381 1839 Naumann, Vog. Deutschlands . . . . . . 1842 De Bonnechose, Mem. de la Soc. d' Agriculture, p. 291 1844 Gray, Genera of Birds, III., p. 666 1845 Fleming, Zoology of the Bass, in " The Bass Rock," edited by the Rev. T. M'Crie 1848 Thompson, Natural History of Ireland, III., p. 254 1851 Macgillivray, British Birds, V., p. 405 , , . . 1852 Muller, Fseroenes Fug. .. .. .. 1863 14 THE GANNET Published in Cunningham, Ibis, 1866, p. 1 . . . . . . . . 1866 CoLLETT, " Norges Fugle," Christiania Forhandl, 1868, p. 182 Gray, Birds of the West of Scotland, p. 458 . . Gould, Birds of Great Britain Dresser, Birds of Europe, VI., p. 181* Booth, Rough Notes on Birds, III., Pis. 1-6 Yarrell, Hist. British Birds, 4th ed. GiGLiOLi, Avifauna Italica, p. 274, 2nd ed., p. 420 Harvie-Brown, Fauna of the Outer Hebrides, p. 94 1 Saunders, Manual of British Birds, p. 353 . , . . 1889 LiLFORD, British Birds, VII., p. 9 1890 Newton, Dictionary of Birds, p. 300 . . . . 1893 Lee, British Birds in their Nesting Haunts, II., p. 68 1897 Grant, Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, 1868 1871 1873 1880 1883 1885 1886 XXVI., p. 425 Ussher, Birds of Ireland, p. 155 Macoun, Catalogue of Canadian Birds, p. 65 Barrtngton, Migration of Birds Harting, Handbook British Birds, 2nd ed., p. 285 Dresser, Palaearctic Birds, p. 561 Oddi, Atlante Ornitologico, p. 493 1898 1900 1900 1901 1901 1902 1902 * Here the description of the adult female is really intended for the immature Gannet of either sex. BIBLIOGRAPHY 15 Published in WiGLESWORTH, St. Kilcla and its Birds, p. 48 . . 1903 Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleuropas (ed. 1903-4) 1904 Harvie-Brown, Fauna of N. W. Highlands, p. 213 1904 Harvie-Brown, Fauna of the Tay, Vol. X. ot " The Vertebrate Fauna of Scotland, ' p. 216 . . 1906. Newton, Ootheca Wolleyana, II., p. 453 . . . . 1907 Pike, Adventures in Birdland, p. 115,, . .. ... 1907 Pike, Through Birdland Byways . . . . . . 1911 CHAPTER I. NAMES OF THE GANNET. Names which have been applied to the Gaimel — Norse Names for it — Gaelic Names — Earliest known Reference to this Bird — Origin of the word "Gannet" — Professor Skeat's Explanation of it — Origin of " Solan " — Paucity of Information before the Sixteenth Century — Representations by the Early Writers not to be commended. Scientific Names. Sida hassana, Brisson. Pelecanus hassanus, Linnaeus. Sula alba, Meyer. Dysporus hassanus, lUiger. Moris hassanus. Leach. Morus hassanus, Vieillot. Sula americana, Bonaparte. Sula lefevri, Baldamus. In its immature plumage the Gannet is the Pelecanus maculatus of Gmelin, also the " Fou tachete " of Buffon, the Spotted Booby of Latham, and the Great Booby of Catesby ; and, when nearly adult, the Sula Hoieri ot Clusius.* * Ab imo coUo ad ouropygium usque ducta per dorsum mensui'a pedem Romanran longa erat : a capitis vertice ad doi-suin usque, uncias undecim. 18 THE GANNET Vernacular Names. Bass-Tolpel, German. Schottengans, German. Jan van Gent,* Dutch. Basaangans, Dutch. Gent, in Hehgoland. Le Fou de Bassan, French. Boubie '^ Harenguier ?• Names in Normandy (Kerville). Marga f ^ Alcatraz,! Spanish. Ganso-patola, Portuguese ~\ Mascato, Portuguese [ (" Ibis," 1887, p. 31). Facao, Portuguese ^ Sula bianca, Italian. colli ambitus totideni crassus erat, rostri, quod valde mucronatum & firmum habebat, longitude, uncise quinque cum semisse : rostri . pars crassior, & quse circa oculos, nigra erat ; coi-poris ambitus viginti quatuor uncias, hoc est, binos pedes Romanos explebat, alse plus quam pedem longae, caudae vero longiores pamije septem unciarum longitudinem non superabant : crura satis tenuia infirma habebat (Exot. Lib. decern., 367). The above is Clusius' description of a dried bird, sent by Dr. Henry Hoier, physician in Bergen, Norway, to Dr. Peter Pauw, in Leyden. * " The Dutch ' Jan van Gent,' i.e., Jolin of Ghent," writes Professor Newton, " is a sailor's name : Gannet and Gans conveyed no particular meaning to them, so, as often happens with illiterate men, they took the name of the town as something tangible." t I have more than once heard " Margot " applied to the Gannet in the " Pas de Calais." Professor Newton thought this provincialism might have its derivation in Mar (mare) and 6was (a goose). J Sometimes also used for Gulls (Irby), also for the Pelican (Skeat). NAMES OF THE G ANNEX 19 See Forrest's "Fauna of North Gwydd Lygadlon = clear-eyed Goose, Welsh Gwylan Wydd = Gull-Goose, \ Wales," p. 253, and Welsh . j Spurrell's Welsh Gans, Welsh J Dictionary. Hafsula, Icelandic. Havsula, Danish. Tossefugl, Danish. Sillebas, Swedish 1 ,/-. t^ r. ^ .. > (u. K. Sundstrom). Hafssula, Swedish J Bergshammar, Swedish Suula, Finnish. Local Gaelic names (by A. Carmichael^) : — Amhasan : Amhasag : Asan : Sulaire : Ian Ban an Sgadan = the White Bird of the Herring : Guga = the Young Gannet {cf. "Annals, Scottish N. H.," 1905, p. 144): Sulaiche.f Colonel Feilden states, on the authority of Svabo, that the young Gannet with down still on it is called at Myggenoes in Feroe " Ompel,"| a word not in the Danish or Gaelic dictionary, and of which the sense is not clear. Professor Skeat, who has been good enough to assist me, suggests that it may be a variant of the Norwegian * As contributed by him to Harvie-Brown and Buckley's " Fauna of the Outer Hebrides " (p. 94). I Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary (1825) has Sulair, s.m., a St. Kildiau bird, pi. sulairean, and sulaireach- " full of Soland goose," ai)|)lical)lc to an island. t " Zoologist." 1872, ]\ 3280. c2 20 THE GANNET " Ommer," which is another spelHng of Norwegian Imhre, and means a loon. Earliest known references to Gannets. — What must needs be the earhest mention of this bird by name, at all events in English literature, is to be found in the ancient Anglo- Saxon poem of Beowulf,* where the words " Gannet's bath " are used as a figurative expression for the sea : — " Manig otherne Godum gegrettan Ofer ganotes bseth." [0}:e]i ^anore]- ba-tS], I have only quoted three lines. The whole passage is thus translated by Mr. Kemble : — " Between the tribes of the Geats, and Gar-danes, there shall be peace, and contention shall rest, the hostile malice which they before endured ; that our treasures should be in common, whilst I wield the wide realm ; many a one shall greet the other with benefits, over the Gannet's bath." Mr. Kemble says the events described in the poem took place in the fifth century, and that the date of the writing of it was subsequent to Augustine's Mission, A.D. 597. Professor Skeat observes {inlitt.) that the handwriting is only * " The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf," cditcnl by Jolin N. Komhlo, 1833, Vol. I., p. 120, and II., p. 76. NAMES OF THE GANNET 21 of the tenth century, the copy being a late one, but that the wording is in the main far older, going back to the sixth century.* Another Anglo-Saxon mention of the Gannet is in the " Codex Exoniensis," where reference is made to the cries of birds — that of the Gannet — " ganetes hleothor " — and of another species — " hu-ilpan sweg " — (Thorpe's ed., 1842, p. .'J07). Mr. Thorpe translates this passage : — " At times the swan's song I made to me for pastime, the Ganet's cry, and the hu-ilpe'st note, for men's laughter." A third mention of the Gannet, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which has already been brought to the notice of naturalists by Professor Cunningham, + runs : — * In a vocaljvilary in the British Museum imblished by Mr. T. Wright (A.-S. Vocab., ed. Wiilker, col. 259), which has been supposed to be of the xith century, sixty-six birds' names are given in old Latin and Anglo- Saxon, of which three are — Merrjus, dop-fugel [diving fowl] ; Fulix, ganot [Gannet] ; Anaer, hwite gos [white goose]. Another MS., also ascribed Ijy him to the xith century (col. 404), ha.H Fulix, ganot, oththe dopened [i.e., Gannet or di[)ping duck], t Probably the Curlew. (,?ee Notes in Phil. Soc. Trans., 1906, by the Rev. Professor Skeat, p. 364), who says a base of this form would answer to a later Northern E. whaup, which means a Curlew, or as a verb, to cry as a Curlew, to whistle. He adds (in litl.) that the A.-S. word is hni/pan, gon. of huilpe, i.e., hvnlpc, and that the hyphen is a mistake. J "Ibis," 1866, p. 1. A slightly different rendering is given in tlie Parker MS (" Earle's Saxon Chronicles," p. 126). 22 THE GANNET " Over the rolling waves, over the Ganet-bath [0):e]i ;^anote]" ba;SJ, over the water- throng, the abode of the whale." The above is the Rev. J. Ingram's translation. In this case the events celebrated by the poet took place as late as A.D. 975, but Mr. Ingram finds it difficult to say when this portion of the Chronicle was penned, but probably in the twelfth or thirteenth century. A fourth mention occurs in a Runic poem — "A ship [literally oak] often saileth over the Gannet's bath" (" Archgeologia," xxviii., p. 344; " Bosworth and Toller's A.-S. Dictionary," 1882, p. 361). I learn from Professor Skeat that there is yet a fifth mention of the Gannet in the A.-S. metrical psalms ; psalm 104, verse 35 ; where the nom. pi. ganetas occurs. These very early Saxon mentions of the Gannet, though they tell us nothing about it but its name, are yet very interesting as showing how common and well-known the bird must have been a thousand years ago. Origin of Gannet. — " Gannet " is a name which, as has been shown, is of the highest antiquity. Referring to Professor Skeat's " Etymological Dictionary," 1901, as Professor Newton has done in his " Dictionary,"* and * " Dictit)nary of Birds," p. 300. NAMES OF THE GANNET 23 especially under the words " Gander," " Gannet," and " Goose," it appears that two forms, besides the German " Gans," are from Teut. gan : Indo-Germanic ghan, whence also the Greek x'^^^ ^^^^ ^h® Latin anser. Professor Skeat gives Middle English contraction gante ; Old High German ganazo. The etymology of birds' names is a recondite subject, and one with which I can claim but little acquaintance. " Gan " stands in Cornish dialect, according to Borlase, for white (Borl., C— E, " Vocab.," 1769), which certainly accords with the colour of the bird, but such a word is quite unknown to Professor kSkeat. It is more likely that the true meaning of Gannet is, as Professor Skeat points out, the bird which gapes f;:^«'vf v or x,^(rxeiv = to yawn),* in which sense it is even more applicable to Sula than to Anser. Assuredly the Gannet can and does gape, opening its mouth very wide, both to bite and to cry out, and it gapes on its nest in hot weather {see Chapter XIV.). According to Wright, " to gant " is a north-country provincialism for " to yawn " (" Diet. Obs. and Prov. Eng.," II., p. 497), and Jamieson, in his " Diet, of the Scottish Language," has " Gant, Gaunt, s., a yawn " ; see also article " Gant " in the " English Dialect Diet." (II., p. 557), and " Gannet " in Murray's " New English Dictionary." * See Skeat, Art. " Goose." 24 THE GANNET There are nine ways in which the name " Gannet," as appHed to the bird, has been spelt, including " Gaunt." " Gaunte " is made use of in John Skelton's " Boke of Philip Sparrow," 1508 ; and " Gaunt," which is the same word, by Sir H. Gilbert, in 1583 (" Hakluyt's Voyages," III., p. 195). *t In Ralfe's " Birds of the Isle of Man " " Gaunt " is given as a provincialism formerly in use. Origin of Solan. — The origin of the name " Solan," — Solendce of The Cupar Codex (believed to have been written in 1447), — a name much more made use of in Scotland than " Gannet," and which Conrad Gesner in 1555 spelled " Soland," is thus given by John Blaeu in his great geo- graphical work { : — " Hi anseres nomine vulgari e Latino, ut puto, detorto, Solen vocantur, quod male pronunciant Soland, id est, anniversarii : ad nos enim veniunt semel * According to Pennant, this latter spelling has been applied to Podicipes cristatiis (" British Zool.," IT., p. 498), and Mr. Harting gives a possible instance of its being used for a Grebe in Edward I.'s time (" Zoologist," 1884, p. 350). f In one version of the " Proniptorium Parvulorum," an English-Latin Dictionary, compiled in the Fourteenth century, occurs : " Gante, byrde, Bistarda," to which the late Mr. Albert Way, in his edition, published in 184.3 by the Camden Society, appended a note (p. 186) to the effect that Gante meant Gannet, but the passage cited by that learned antiquary in support of this view does not confirm it, for it is an entry in the " Exchequer Roll of Normandy," A.D. 1180 (p. 57), of a payment of £6 3s. 9d. for the pasturage and carriage of 120 gantarum brought from England to Nor- mandy. The ganta here must, in Professor Newton's opinion, have been common domestic Geese, and he adds, in the " Manipulus Vocabulorum," a similar work of later period by Levins, we have (ed. Wheatley, 1867, col. 88) Gannet rendered by Penelops, that is to say, some sort of Duck. X " Geographia Blavianse," 1662, Lib. xii., xiii. (Dutch edition, 1654). I am indebted to the late Professor Newton for a sight of this rare and splendid folio, not often to be seen. NAMES OF THE GANNET 25 unica solum vice in toto anno." The derivation of the word here given is ingenious, but can hardly be accepted as the right one. Neither can any derivation from the verb Socla=to linger, be accepted. Professor Skeat does not believe there is such a word in any language. A better ex- planation is that propounded by Martin ("A Voyage to St. Kilda," 1698, p. 49), namely, that " Solan," a name given to the bird " which with eyes directed forward sees its prey from afar," was derived from the Irish {i.e. Gaelic) word " Sou'l-er." Quickness of sight is a character which is possessed by the Gannet in a marked degree. Professor Skeat has obliged me with the following comments : — " I can find no Irish or Gaelic sulalre, ' eyer.' Apart from false forms, what we really find are : Irish suiL ' eye ' ; suileog, ' little eye ' ; suileach, ' sharp-sighted " (O'Reilly). Gaelic suil, ' eye ' ; suileag, ' little eye ' ; 7/ z, I ' '^h^i'P-'^ighted ' (Macleod). O'Reilly also has : suilaire, ' a soland goose.' Macleod only gives in his English-Gaelic part : ' solan goose, sulair, guga ' ,• and in the other part, sulair, ' the Gannet.' .... The Gaelic sulair (Irish, sulaire) does not mean ' watchful.' It simply means ' Gannet,' and is an Irish and Gaelic borrowing from Norse. Solan is not Celtic ; it has no sense in Celtic." Professor Skeat was the first to explain that the final n in solan stands for Icelandic sula~n=" the Gannet," 26 THE GANNET shortened from sula hin=" Gannet the " : because Icelandic puts the definite article after its substantive, as in Danish and Swedish. Spelling of " Solan.'' — In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries everyone was free to follow his own fancy in spelling, which accounts for there being no less than fifteen variants of Solan. : — Solan. Soland (Lowland Scotch). Solande (Bishop Leslie). Solend (Gesner, 1555). Solund (Grew, 1681 ; Wesley, 1772). Solane (Act of Parliament, 1592). Solen (Blaeu, 1662). Solent. Sollem. Solem l(Bj.gj.gtoj^^ ^gg^^ Solemne J Sollen (Lauderdale Accounts). Solayne (Monipennie, 1597). Sule. Sulan. Sullen (Earl of Aberdeen's Accounts, 1682 : Hist. MSS., Com. v., 610). The second spelling — that of " Soland," which is Lowland NAMES OF THE GANNET 27 Scotch — is traceable as far back as Holland's poem of the Houlate {i.e., Owl, or Owlet), written about A.D. 1450 : — " And als in the advent, The Soland Stewart was sent ; For he could fro the firmament Fang the fische deid." " Houlate," III., 5. Paucity of Records before the Sixteenth Century. — As will be related presently, it is in thirteenth century MSS. that we have the first recorded allusion to any Gannets' breed- ing-place, and this w^as to the now deserted settlement of Lundy, From then until the Scotichronicon and Botoner's "Itinerary," considered to have been written about 1478, of " aves vocatse ganettys " breeding on an island, which was most likely Gulland, we hear nothing more about these birds. But similar lack of information exists concerning almost every other kind of British bird, for birds were not a subject in which the small number of lettered men of those days took any interest, except it were a culinary one. It was not until the appearance of Conrad Gesner's great work, the " Historia Animalium," and William Turner's short but invaluable Commentary on Birds, that literature had further to tell us about Gannets, except in so far as they are incidentally described in the early accounts of the Bass Rock by John de Fordun (1448), and one or two 28 THE GANNET others, whose narratives must be reserved for considera- tion later on.* Representations by the Early Artists. — There are several early representations of the Gannet, but they possess only an antiquarian interest in the present day, and would hardly be referred to in any modern synonymy of the Gannet. The efforts which the early naturalists made in pursuit of learning are worthy of all commendation, and the measure of success which rewarded their attempts to delineate birds in the face of difficulties which an ornithologist of the present generation has not to contend with, was far greater than some of us realise. Before the birth of the great reformer of natural history, the art of cutting on blocks was in its infancy, and there were then no pictures of birds which in the present day would be deemed worth serious study. 1. Hence, with all desire to praise, one cannot say much for Conrad Gesner's figure, t the earliest attempt to delineate a Gannet; which Brisson (1760) afterwards designated as "icon pessima " ; but it was done 400 years ago, and Gesner's letterpress generally makes up for his artist's somewhat rude handiwork. His Gannet {see the copy of it by Mr. Wilson) has a very blunt beak and a very ragged tail, the former an * The Cormorant and Pelican are described in Pierre Belon's " Histoire de la Nature des Oyseaux," 1555, but not the Gannet. f " Hist. Animalium," 1555, Lib. III., p. 158. The t'oui- toes are also insufficiently joined together. FIGURE OF THE GANNET IN GESNEr's " HISTORIA ANIMALIUM.' 30 THE GANNET imperfection in the block, the latter perhaps the effect of confinement, for the drawing of this bird was sent to him from Scotland by Henry St. Clare (or Sinclair),* who may have kept it alive. 2. Clusius'figuretis taken from a drawing sent to him, with one of the Mergus am^ericanus (the Great Auk) — also copied on the same page (p. 103) — from America, by " ornatissimus vir Jacobus Plateau." The figure is a poor one, but seems, as Professor Newton remarks, to have been done from a real bird. 3. Willughby and Ray give a figure in their well-known " Ornithologia," 1676 (Tab. lxiii.), which is good, though the tail is not pointed enough : perhaps it was drawn from the example picked up at Coleshil, in Warwickshire, and described in their work {I.e., p. 329), and they may have made some attempt to keep the bird alive. 4. Sir Robert Sibbald. in his " Scotia Illustrata " (1684) gives three figures : — Tab. ix., Fig. 1 : Caput veteris Anseris Bassani ; Fig. 2 : Anser Bassanus junior ; Fig. 3 : Pes senioris, all of which are creditably executed for the time when they were done, and appropriately embellish the work of this prolific author. In his later work — a " History of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross" (1710) — he has a long * Professor Newton observes that this seems to have been Henry Sinclair, Bishop of Ross (born 1508, died 1505), who also sent Gesner figures of the Great Bustard and Capercaillie. f " Caroli Clusii atrebatis Exoticorum Libri decern.," 1605. Book V., Ch. VII. NAMES OF THE GANNET 31 account of the Gannet in Chapter II., but all the facts had already been given by other writers, so it need hardly be quoted. 5. Eleazer Albin, in his " Natural History of Birds," 1731 (I., p. 82), gives his Gannet five toes, although correctly stating in the letterpress that it has only four, but otherwise the plate is passable. .C-->--«iWVfi THE GANNET IN PONTOPPIDAN'S NATURAL HISTORY OF NORWAY. 6. Then we have the delineation in Bishop Pontoppidan's " Natural History of Norway " (1753),^ where the Hav-Sule * " Det forste Forbog paa Norges Natiu'lige Historia," II., p. 104, English edition, II., p. 76. The figure is copied in Lloj'd's " Scandinavian Adventures." 32 THE GANNET {i.e., Sea Sule or Solan) is supplied with a large comb on the top of its head, stated in the text to be red. The Bishop was generally accurate, but here his description of the so- called Gannet applies better to the drake of Somateria spectabilis, with which he may have somehow confounded it. 7. This concludes all the references to figures given by the early writers, or such as call for any remark, for there is no figure of a Gannet, as has been supposed, in Aldrovandi's " Ornithology " (1603). That which John Jonston, the copyist of Aldrovandi's, erroneously thought to represent this bird (Lib. XIX., Cap. xx.), and which he reproduced as such in his " Historia Naturalis de Avibus " (Tab. XLVii.) under the title of " Anser Bassana," or " Scottisch Gans," was meant, remarks Professor Newton {in litt.), by Aldrovandi to illustrate his article on the Great Bustard {I.e., index under " Gustarda "). It is more like a Scoter Duck than anything else, but is armed with spurs (!), and was considered by Professor Newton to be an adaptation from Gesner's plate. Neither has Belon any figure of the Gannet, but among the rude woodcuts of birds in the " Ortus Sanitatis " of De Cuba (1480), there is one which, under the name of Mergus, is possibly intended to be a Gannet (" Tract, de Au," LXXV.). De Cuba's illustrations are said to have been generally drawn to fit his own descriptions. CHAPTER II. DISTRIBUTION OF THE GANNET. Geographical Distribution of the Gannet — Its Distribution in Winter — Not tlie same as in Summer — An enumeration of its fifteen Breeding Places — of which nine are in the British Isles — all, except one, on the West Coast. It has not been sufficiently insisted upon in works on natural history that nearly all birds have two geographical distributions varying according to the season, and to give a complete summary of their habitat, one must keep that for winter apart from that for summer. Distribution in Winter* — The area occupied by the Gannet in winter greatly overlaps that which it occupies in summer ; including not less than fifty degrees of latitude, but that is * Much account cannot be taken of strayed Gannets picked up in Belgium and France, e.g., one at Toul (Godron)^ and two in January, 1877, in Sarthe (Gentil), and others in Germany, e.g., in Hessen (A. G. Preuschen) and in Brandenburg. Dr. B. Borggreve saj's it has occurred at Neuwied, and three times in Munsterland (" Vogel F. V. Norddeuts.," 1869, p. 136), and H. Schalow cites one in Bohemia ("Journ. f. Orn.," 1876, p. 6). In Norway Prof. CoUett reports one on Lake SUdre Fjord, Valders, another on Lake Store, Lee, and a third in April, 1892, on Lifjeld in Thelmarken. A Gannet was obtained in Ihe Adriatic ("B. of Tunisia," p. 159), and another off Beirut ("Ibis," 1910, p. 491). Stragglers inland have been found at Michigan and Ontario ("Auk," 19()(), pji. 275, 443). D ~^~^ ^ ifM ..'>^ .'/" V ^:)^- AREA (DOTTED) OF DISTRIBUTION IN WINTER. DJSTRIBUTION OF THE GANNET 35 hardly a fair way of dealing with it. There must be two maps, which are necessary to show approximately what its distribution is at the two seasons. Though on both sides of the Atlantic the furthest winter range of the Gannet extends beyond the Tropic of Cancer, that cannot be regarded as its normal range. Mr. Meade-Waldo says it is occasionally abundant at the Canary Islands,* but it seems to be rare off the Azoresf and Madeira, while it is more than likely that any Gannets seen off the Cape Verde Islands would be Sula capensis, the difference between them not being recognisable at a distance.! In the Straits of Gibraltar and vicinity I have taken pleasure in watching the Gannet, and on the testimony of several witnesses it is common there. § On occasion it is reported to be extraordinarily abundant off the south of Portugal and Spain, especially in winter, and, in 1908, Miss Buxton saw large numbers at Cape St. Vincent as late in the spring as April 7tli. When off the south of Spain, after gales in the autumn of 1880, Mr. Anderson passed through what he describes as " acres of Gannets," || and many more * "Ibis," 1893, p. 198. f " Novitates Zool.," XII., p. 110. f Three or foiu- Gannets at the Canaries had black tails (" Ibis," 1889, p. 508). § Cf. " Ibis." 1867, p. 430 ; 1871, p. 398 ; 1885, p. 249 ; " Orn. S. of Gib.," p. 207. I| " Rep. Migr. of Birds," 1880, p. 90. d2 36 THE GANNET > were seen on December 27th. 1882, and January 20th, ] 884.* Mr. Boyd Alexander has recorded how, " on leaving Lisbon on December 20th (1897), the sea, as far as Corunna (about 250 miles), presented an extraordinary sight, for over its surface skimmed countless numbers of Gannets, which looked like innumerable moving specks of white in the far distance."! This extraordinary assemblage must have been composed entirely of adult birds, and such numbers were very noteworthy. It is not infrequently met with in the western Mediter- ranean, and some have been obtained in Vaucluse, south of France (Guende et Reguis), and others near Hyeres. It received admission into the Italian avifauna in 1877, | when a young male was killed in November ; this, together with an adult, are in the museum at Florence, and it was not until 1898 that a third was taken. § In Sicily it is less rare, and Mr. Whitaker has obtained both adult and young ; he has also found immature Gannets to be not uncommon on the Tunisian coast. || Many English observers have seen them in the Bay of Biscay, but they are apparently not common there, from * t.c, 1884, p. 4. t " Ibis," 1898, p. 285. t "Ibis," 1881, 13. 216. § " Ornis," 1899, p. 242. II " Birds of Tunisia," II., p. 158, and c/. " Ornis," 1903-4, p. 59G. DISTRIBUTION OF THE GANNET 37 what Mr. A. Granger has about them in his " Faune Orn. du Sud-ouest [de la France]," (1893). As regards its northern winter Hmit, it is not easy to be precise. Numbers of Gannets have been occasionally seen at the Shetland Islands in December,* and at that season they are not infrequent on the coast of Ireland (R. M. Barrington), and may be looked for in the English Channel. t There are generally some in the North Sea. The late Henry Stevenson had known twenty or more to be brought into a Norfolk port in December, and several were seen as far east as the south-west coast of Sweden in January, 1884, and again in December, 1887,| while according to Goebel it has even been seen at Varanger (" Zur Ornis Lapplands' und der Solowezkyschen inseln," p. 124). On the other side of the Atlantic the Gannet is stated to go as far south as the Gulf of Mexico in winter, 2,500 miles from its Canadian breeding-places, and it has been identified at Trinidad, § but there Sula leucogastra takes its place, just as Sula cape7isis does in a corresponding latitude in the Old World. It is not very uncommon on the coast of Louisiana.il Distribution in Summer. — ^In summer the Gannet's range * "Zoologist," 18(H), p. 1703. f "Zool.," 18(5.5, pp. 94, 98. X " O. K. der Ac. der Wissense," XVI., p. 51 ; XVII., p. ()9. §"The Field," April 17tli, 1897. !| " Auk," 1907, [>. 310. AREA (dotted) OF DISTRIBUTION IN SUMMER. (Thickest at Breeding Places.) DISTRIBUTION OF THE GANNET 39 is probably seldom further south than Lat. 45° S., and that only for non-breeders, but its northern limit reaches to within the Arctic Circle, for there is a breeding place on Grimsey Island off the north coast of Iceland. If it were not for that circumstance the area of its distribution would correspond with that accorded to the Great Auk. The Gannet's metropolis is St. Kilda, and its summer quarters may be defined as being the coasts of England, Scotland and Ireland, and more particularly the west coasts, as well as the rocky Feroe Islands and Iceland. On the coast of Norway it is never known to have bred, and very few, we are told by Professor Collett, ever proceed beyond the North Cape, but it has been recorded by Herr Goebel in Russian Lapland {I.e.), and has even received a Finnish name, according to Palmen. In the Baltic it is but a straggler. As regards America, there are now two " Ganne tries," if it be allowable so to term a Gannet camp (instead of five as formerly) — both in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, which will be described in Chapter VII. I learn from Mr. C. Helms that, though sometimes seen in Davis Straits, the Gannet is only a straggler to Greenland itself, and that only five examples are known to him, viz., one from north and four from south Greenland, and two of these were found drifting dead on the sea ; very possibly they belonged to one of the Icelandic settlements. 40 THE GANNET One peculiarity of the Gannet is the small number of its breeding resorts, which politically are all in the realms of BREEDING PLACES OF THE GANNET IN THE BRITISH ISLES. two monarchies ; another great feature is the fidelity with which it adheres to them, for no breeding-place is known for DISTRIBUTION OF THE GANNET 41 certain to have been ever voluntarily abandoned. Briefly they are as follows : — England. — Lundy (but this, it is to be feared, is for the present forsaken). Wales. — Grasholm, on the coast of Pembrokeshire. Ireland. — The Bull Rock ; The Skelligs. Scotland. — The Bass Rock ; Ailsa Craig ; St. Kilda Islands ; Sulisgeir (or North Barra) ; The stack of Stack and Skerry.^ Feroe . — Mygganaes . Iceland. — Sulusker ; Eldey ; Grimsey. Canada.^ — Bird Rocks ; Bonaventure. It certainly is not a little singular that all the breeding- places in the British Isles should be on the west coasts, except the Bass, as well as one at Feroe and two in Iceland, but the west coast is more rocky than the east, and there are more islands there, which is what Gannets love, indeed so strong is their predilection for islands that not a single settlement is known to exist on the mainland. * Marked by error on the map as Suliskerry. CHAPTER III. LUNDY, GRASHOLM, AND SKELLIG. Lundy Island — Notices of its " Gannetry " in RoUs of the Thirteenth Century — Its disastrous Modern History — Grasholm on the Welsh Coast — Its Origin not known — Irish Stations — The Little Skellig— The Bull Rock— The latter known to have been used in 1853. Lundy Island. Its Early History. — Lundy Island is off the north coast of Devonshire, and naturalists are indebted to the learned researches of G. S. Steinman* and T. D. Hardy for unearthing some exceedingly early notices of Gannets breeding there. t These accounts are found in certain * " Some Account of the Island of Lnndy." by G. S. Steinman. " Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica," 1837, IV., p. 313-330." It is very probable that further search among Patent Rolls and Hundred RoUs and Inquisitions taken at the deaths of the different lords of Lundy, upon what fell to the lord within his manor by forfeiture, would reveal other early references to tlie birds of this island. ■j" The late Mr. H. Saunders quotes the antiquary Leland as mentioning Gannets which bred on Lundy in the time of Edward II. (" Brit. Birds," III., p. 157), but the only passage discoverable in Leland which refers to Lundy Island (" Collectanea," Hearne Coll., II., p. 41G) says nothing about the birds there. •i-*^ ca S';!^ &\ t T^ *^ ii^ f fe . ^ fitiWi^i^^ 1 i LUNDY ISLAND 43 " Extents," or " Inquisitions " {literally " inventories ") contained in ancient rolls of the time of Edward I. and Edward II. Thanks to Dr. Birch, of the British Museum, who indicated their probable whereabouts, I am able to say that the original rolls are quite safe, and are preserved at the Record Office, and through him I obtained per- mission to have certain passages copied by Miss E. M. Thompson, in whose autograph, for the sake of accuracy, they are here presented. Translation by Mr. Steinman of an Extent ynade in the reign of Ed/ward I. {see Plate). ". . the taking of rabbits is estimated at 2,000, £5 10s., and the estimate is at 5s. 6d. each hundred skins, because the flesh is not sold. Also the rock of Gannets is worth 5s., other birds, but they are not sold. There is also one eyre of butcher falcons* which have sometimes three young ones, sometimes four, sometimes more, and some- times less. This eyre the jury knew not how to estimate, and they build their nests in a place in which they cannot be taken," On the back of the " inquisition " it is recorded that " all these things may be considered of such value to the * Faico peregrinus no doubt. 44 THE GANNET keepers of the island, as to lessen their wages to the extent of 5s., and the fowls beside, although they cannot be sold, nor are the keepers willing to eat them . . . yet he estimated them at 40d."^ The date of this " inquisition " is 1274, and it affords the earliest documentary evidence there is relating to any Gannets' breeding-place, preceding the first record of the Bass Rock by about 150 years, and thus its interest is not easily over-rated. We next learn from Steinman's researches that in 1321, during the reign of Edward II., owing to Marisco's acquiring or recovering Lundy, an inquisition of what was on the island had again to be made, and again the Gannets come in for mention. Translation of the Inquisition by Mr. Steinman. " There is also a rabbit warren worth in ordinary years 100s., but this year destroyed in great part by the men of John de Wylyngton and the Scots. Also a certain rock called the Gannets' stone, with two places near it where Gannets settle and breed, worth in ordinary years 66s. 8d., but this year destroyed in part by the Scots. Also eight tenants, who hold their land and tenements by a certain * " Coll. Top. et G.," IV., p. 317. In nearly every other place young Gannets and Puffins were looked upon as fit liuman food at a later date. in LUNDY ISLAND 45 charter of Herbert de Mareis,* granted them for the term of their Hves, who pay 15s. yearly. Also one tenant who should keep the said Gannets during the whole of the season of their breeding thereon, for which service he will be quit of his rent of two shillings. Also pleas and perquisites of courts worth yearly 4s. "t In the forty-seven years since the previous " extent " was made in 1274, the value of the Gannets had increased. Perhaps it had been discovered in the interval that they were an edible commodity, for a person is expressly designated to look after them ; at any rate the Gannets' stone, before assessed at 5s., is now valued at 66s. and 8d. Four years later — 1325 or 1326 — Edward II., in order to avoid his queen and barons, thought to take refuge on Lundy Island, and again a third inventory, though a brief one, was made, which gives Gannets among the island's products. ■' Cuniculos producit copiose, columbas, et struconas, quas vocat Alexander Necham (Nechristum) Ganymedis aves, indies (nidos) habet prsegnantes." ("Vita et Mors Edwardi Secundi," by Thomas de la Moore.) ^ * Or Marisco, a descendant of William de Marisco, who was lord of Lundy in 1199 (Steinman I.e.). t Inq. 15, Edw., No. 49. J Extracted from " The Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II.," Vol. II., p. 309. 46 THE GANNET In the "Annals of England," by John Stow (1631), the passage is rendered : — " It bringeth forth Conies verie plentifull ; it hath pigeons [? Columha livia] and other Foules, which Alex- ander Necham calleth Ganimedas birdes, having great nestes."* For a long interval after this there seem to be no more Gannet memorials in connection with Lundy. Willughby and Ray evidently were not aware of this station, neither did Montagu know of it, though a Devonshire man, nor is there anything concerning Lundy Gannets in Camden's " Britannia." That they continued breeding there we may look upon as almost certain, but it is not until 1830 that we * No passage of the kind alluded to seems to be in Necham's " De Naturis Rerum," and it therefore must be sought in some other of his writings. It may be remarked that " Foules " is not a literal translation of the word " struconas," and Professor Newton thought it should be " struthonas," observing that the c and t are often indistinguishable in old MSS., and t very often written for th {the h being silent). Professor Skeat observes also that the Greek arTpovBo<; (whence CTTpovOiwv) was vaguely used, for all sorts of birds, from the Sparrow to the Eagle. Three hundred years later, the poet Michael Drayton (cjuoting Steinman, tells us, I.e., p. 330, from Baker, the Latin translator of De la Moor's " Life of Edward II."), returns to the subject in his " Polyolbion," and versifies the birds of Ganymed, which bred on Lundy Island, thus : — " This Lundy is a nymph to idle toys inclin'd And all on pleasure set, doth whollie give her mind To see upon her shores her fowl and conies spread, And wantonly to hatch the birds of Ganimed." Song IV.; u. 11-14. Ganymede, in mythology, was changed by Jupiter into an Eagle, according to some, which may have led Necham, by a stretch of thought, to use this name for the Gannet (Newton in litt.). LUNDY ISLAND. 47 find their doing so confirmed by Dr. E. Moore on the faith of Mr. Comyns.* In 1787, a visitor to Lundy, whose name is lost, kept a journal which, being deemed noteworthy, was in 1824 partly printed in the " North Devon Magazine " (p. 54) ; curiously enough this diary does not say a word Lundy f\* Island (}, OanneC Stone B RI S TO L C H A N N EL DEVONSHIRE LUNDY ISLAND. about Gannets, though it tells of the great quantities of " Parrots," Muirrs " of two sorts (Guillemots and Razorbills), and small Gulls netted by the inhabitants. Comyns, however, was a naturalist, and his name, frequently mentioned by * « Trans. Plymoutli Inst.," 1830, p. 341. 48 THE GANNET. Moore and Montagu, is sufficient guarantee, but it looks as if the Gannet was not very abundant on Lundy in his day. Bellamy* speaks of Gannets breeding in 1839 on Lundy Island. Its Modern History. — Turning now to the modern history of this settlement, the story of Lundy Island is a sad one — really too much so for a naturalist to dwell on, when one thinks what might have been done, and was not done, for the preservation of the Gannets in this their time-honoured home. At one time, we are told by Messrs. D'Urban and Mathew, the authors of " The Birds of Devon,"' there were nearly seventy nests, and this as recenth" as ISSO,")" yet this may be an error, for in 1887 there seem to have been only sixteen n6'sts,J according to Mr. Howard Saunders, who stayed on the island, and therefore had every opportunity of ascer- taining their number. It is impossible now to say what was the maximum number of nests reached at Lundy ; it is unlikely that it was ever a very large settle- ment, but Mr. Hudson Heaven, the proprietor of the island, can recall the time when there were some score of nests. About 1890 or 1891 Mr. Heaven's tenant, Wright, told the Rev. M. A. Mathew § that he did not think a * " Nat. Hist. S. Devon," p. 218 t " Birds of Devon,' p. 177. % " Ootheca Wolleyana," II., p. 457. § I.e., p. 177. LUNDY ISLAND 49 young Gannet had been reared on Gannet Rock for seven years, such was the constant and inconsiderate persecution to which they were already being subjected. In 1893 there were about thirty pairs of old birds, as Mr. F. L. Blathwayt was informed when there on a subsequent visit,* and these, being incessantly disturbed and their eggs taken, had tried to establish themselves on Lundy itself, as more likely to afford them a home. In 1896 there was a gleam of hope for the unfortunate Gannets, the eggs of all wild birds breeding upon Lundy Island receiving pro- tection by order of the County Council, and in 1897 a further order included the Gannets themselves. But these attempts at legislation were too nominal to prove effectual in the case of the Gannets, whatever they may have done for the Puffins and Guillemots, there being no one appointed to see that the law was carried out, which, as was to be expected, became a dead letter. In 1900 Mr. Blathwayt, visiting Lundy, found only three pairs of Gannets which had forsaken Gannet Rock, and were breeding three- quarters of a mile away at the extreme north-east end of the island near the lighthouse, t but it is believed no young were reared. In 1901 the principal of the light- house reported seven pairs, but whether they all had eggs I was not told ; if they had probably they were robbed. * " Zoologist," 1900, p. 375. f /. c, p. 376. 50 THE GANNET In 1902 I had no report from the hghthouse, but m 1903 I learnt from Professor Newton, who was in communication with Mr. H. B. Elton, that the latter had found five pairs of Gannets nesting in a cove below the lighthouse, and that, in spite of its precipitous nature, he had been shown their five eggs which had been all taken ! In 1904, according to the lighthouse keeper, no eggs were laid by the worn-out and disturbed birds, in spite of the quiet now ensured by a watcher put on by the Society for the Protection of Birds, at the instigation of Professor Newton.* Nor were there any eggs, Mr. Elton tells me, in 1906 or in 1907, although the Gannets returned as usual, and so ends for the present the story of this settlement. Lundy, as already stated, is the oldest known Gannet station in the world, once honourably protected, but it has evidently since 1883 been one of the most persecuted. Devonshire naturalists think that in consequence most of the Gannets have gone to Grasholm, on the Welsh coast, but there also they have not been free from persecution. That some would come back to Lundy if the place were sufficiently protected can hardly be doubted, for a site occupied by birds so attached to their homes as Gannets for nearly 700 years is not easily forsaken. It is earnestly * See the Society's " Bird Notes and News," October, 1904, and their " Report," 1905, p. 7. GRASHOLM ISLAND 53 to be hoped that so desirable a result may yet be brought to pass, but unless local sympathy is aroused for the birds, not much can be done.* I am very much obliged to Mr. H. B. Elton for the view of Gannet Rock, and for much information about its Gannets.f Grasholm Island. Modern History. — Grasholm, on the coast of Pembroke- shire, South Wales, is the next settlement to be considered, and here again there has been a good deal of regrettable taking of both eggs and birds. The island, which is twenty-one acres in extent and uninhabitable, is the property of Lord Ken- sington, and is let to Mr. J. J. Neale, who does all he can to protect the birds, and has obliged me with some particulars. He reports that very few young Gannets were reared in 1905, but in 1 906 about a hundred to a hundred and thirty got off, and in 1907 three hundred: one reason for this difference was that the bad weather in 1907 prevented fishermen and others landing on the island and disturbing and molesting the birds. On the north the island is precipitous, and it is there that the Gannets breed, some of them on a rock marked in the Ordnance Survey as the West Tump, and others along the * " With the Gannets," writes Mr. Heaven, " have also vanished the Choughs, which at one time were numerous," but in 1887 were already very rare (c/. " Manual of Br tish Birds," p. 231). t A useful general account of Lundy, entitled " A M()nogra[)l>, descrip- tive and historical" (n.d.) was published by the late Mr. J. R. Chanter. 54 THE GANNET cliff. Mr. Q. E. Gurney and I sailed round the island twice in July, 1903, but it was too rough to land,* at which we IRISH S E A Grasshclvi. I. GRASHOLM. were naturally much disappointed, after having waited a * Some account of wliat we saw has already been published in the "NorwichNat. Tr." (VII., p. 633) ; the island is best reached fromMilford Haven, but permission is required from the tenant to land. C4RASH0LM ISLAND 55 week for a fine day, but the calmest weather is necessary for a successful visit. The chief company of Gannets nidify on the north side of Grasholm island, where in one place the cliff, which is not very high, terminates in a convenient table-like top, occupied by at least one hundred Gannets : further on we observed five smaller companies, averaging forty Gannets each, as w^ell as three or four smaller parties We.'it. Tiunp ■B A. GRASHOLM. of eight or ten. As far as we could see, every Gannet on the island was in adult plumage, but seven or eight piebald ones were flying around, being in much the same proportion as at Ailsa, and the Bass Rock, viz., about one piebald bird to fifty adults. Judging from one of my tame ones, which went through a succession of changes to be described later on, these piebald Gannets must be from twelve to twenty-six months old, according to the amount of white on them, but 56 THE GANNET some with very little black left in their plumage may be three years old.* Little more remains to be said about Grasholm Island, as its settlement of Gannets has no early history, there being no books bearing on the subject, or travellers' journals from which quotations can be taken. Local enquiries also have failed in eliciting much as to its age. How- GRASHOLM. ever, one old fisherman, John Wats, could certify to Gannets on Grasholm for over forty years, while another very old inhabitant, Mr. Williams, of St. David's, remembered his father-in-law, Henry Bowen, telling him there were Gannets, but not many, on Grasholm, as far back as 1820. There can be little doubt that Gannets Avere there before that time, yet Grasholm may have been forsaken awhile, and then re-occupied by a contingent from the harassed community at Lundy, only forty miles away. The fact of Ray and * It would be a very exceptional thing to see a yoang Gannet which was still black all over at Grasholm or any other station in June or July, because this phase of plumage is not retained nciore than ten months. m GRASHOLM ISLAND 59 Willughby having been at St. David's in June, 1662, on one of their Itineraries, and not mentioning this Gannetry, is really of no weight, for they are equally silent about Lundy Island and Ailsa Craig, and, indeed, their minds seem to have been more occupied with botany than birds. With regard to its bird population, in 1886 Mr. M. D. Propert assessed the Grasholm community of Gannets at 500, and in 1893 Mr. Robert Drane, of Cardiff, considered there were about 240 nests,* which would mean nearly 600 Gannets. Doubtless the number is not always the same, and I am disposed only to reckon it at 400 in 1903, yet it is probable from what Mr. Neale says that, like the Irish Gannetry to be next mentioned, it has increased since then.f For a very good account of the Birds of Grasholm, origin- ally spelt Grasse {i.e., grass) Holme, | see an article by Mr. * "Cardiff Naturalists' Soc. Tr.," 1893-4, p. 7. Mr. Drane's estimate is confirmed by Mr. C. Jefferys {in lift). f Besides Gannets, there used to be immense numbers of Puffins (but Mr. Drane says they have now nearly deserted the place) and a fair quantity of Guillemots and Kittiwake Gulls breeding on Grasholm. Mr. Drane also found the Turtle Dove breeding there, which is the more remarkable because there is not a tree or bush on the island, nor any fresh water, in lieu of bushes he thinks the Turtle Doves use Puffin holes, which he saw them enter. Formerly, he adds, there was hardly a plant of grass upon Grasholm, for the Puffins had so mined its shallow soil that it gave way at every footstep, and was so dry that nothing but the Tree Mallow and an Atriplex, with a few marine plants, grew upon it. + Leland, "Itinerary,' XXVII. 60 THE GANNET Robert Drane, in the " Transactions of the Cardiff Nat. Soc." (1890-1, continued 1893-4), and I am indebted to the author for supplementing it with further particulars. Writing under date of August 3rd, 1903, he says : " I have visited the island three times within the last ten years. . . . On one of my visits I found one of the three Gannet colonies there quite deserted in the height of the breeding season, while that next it, say 400 yards away, was in full swing. Every nest was deserted, and in ruins, although of that season's occupation. . . . Epidemic disease suggests itself as a reason."* The late Mr. E. T. Booth ascertained, from watching some Gannets which bred in confinement; that both sexes take part in the labours of incubation, taking turns to sit on the eggs : that that was so was also believed in the seventeenth century by Martin Martin, to whom the islanders of St. Kilda had communicated it, but Mr. Drane has gone a step further in proving that both male and female feed the young. On one occasion a Gannet fed its downy offspring in his presence, then brooding it, when a second Gannet came and fed the same young one,t after displacing what was presumably its other parent {I.e., p. 60). * Mr. Drane remarks, " It is certain tliat the Manx Shearwater dies in autumn from some not obvious cause. In September, 1908, hundreds lay dead on Skonier island." This may have been due to an epidemic. f Mr. Drane writes me that this has happened since on more than one occasion. LITTLE SKELLIG 61 The Little Skellig. Its Early History. — There are, and possibly have been for centuries, two nurseries of the Gannet in Ireland, and, as far as we know, two only — the Little Skellig and the Bull, both of them island rocks, and both on the south-west coast.* Much the larger of the two, and, as far as we have any cognisance, the older, is the Skellig, which stands out lofty and jagged * The learned Sylvester Giraldus, who wrote a History of Ireland in the Xlllth Century, speaks therein of various birds, and amongst them of a white Goose, called a " Gante." Whether he had the real Gannet in his mind is very doubtful, especially as we know that " Gante " was used in " Rolls of Normandy " of the Xlllth Century for a Goose. Mr. Montague James informed the late Professor Newton that " Ganta," judging from Ducange, meant simjsly Wild Geese, anseres Silvester or aiicae silveater, and not Gannets. Giraldus' words are : — " Aticse minores albse qui et Gantes dicuntur et gregatim in multitudine magna, et garrula venire solent, in hos terrarum fines rarius advenivmt, et tunc valde rarae " (" Tojj. Hib.," I., Cap. XXIII., edited by J. F. Dimock). Translation. — The smaller white Geese, which are also called Gantes, and which are wont to come by flocks in a great and noisy multitude into these remote parts of the earth, appear but seldom, and indeed very few at a time." At first sight one would not think the word " Gantes " to mean here Wild Geese, e.g., Anser alhijrons or A. segetum, because in the next paragraph Giraldus makes mention of these as the larger Geese, commonly called Brisice, or GrisicB, i.e.. Grey Geese ; yet it must be admitted the description is not applicable to the Gannet, and in all probability was not intended for it. Giraldus has many other allusions to Irish birds in his writings, as well as to Welsh ones, but a recent commentator on Irish zoology sets him down as a credulous man (Harting, " Essays on Sport and N. H.," p. 297), whose natural history is not to be relied on. (32 THE GANNET on the rock-bound coast of Kerry, some seventeen miles north-west of the Bull. The approach to the Skellig from Port Magee, a village where there is a small fish-curing Little Skellig Great Skellig THE SKELLIG ROCKS. industry, cannot fail to be impressed on the memory of any who have been there. So will the view of the twin Skelligs from Puffin Island,* which is nearly half-way. Seen from * Puffin Island hardly deserves its name, for there are no longer abixndance of Puffins, but, as we were told, many Manx Shearwaters. A pair of the Greater Shearwater were seen at sea the day before our visit (April 9th) by the boatmen, who described them. LITTLE SKELLIG 65 here, the Little Skellig stands out grandly pyramidal, rearing its tall head 445 feet into the blue vault of Heaven, a beacon seen from afar, on which I longed to land, but weather forbade our getting beyond Puffin Island. We have it on the authority of an Irish historian of eminence, Charles Smith, that Gannets were breeding here LITTLE SKELLIG FROM N.E. (5 MILES). about 1748,* and this is confirmed by Richard Pocock, Bishop of Meath, who had himself been on the Skelligs,t but no doubt this community of birds is far older than 1748. Its Modern History. — The next we hear of the Skellig is in 1828, when Professor Fleming, in his " British Animals," speaks of the Gannets there, but * " state of Kerry," 1756. t cf. Pennant's " British Zoology," ii., p. 614. I have not been able to consult Pocock's " Tour in Ireland." 66 THE GANNET he may be merely repeating Pennant. The first we learn about numbers is that in 1850 there were about a thousand,* but in 1880 Mr. R. M. Barrington thought there were but sixty Gannets,t a great falhng off. In 1882 Sir R. P. Gallwey raises the number to three hundred.! ^^ 1884 Mr. Barrington found it was still increasing,^ while in 1890 Mr. W. H. Turle even thought there were then several thousand pairs of Gannets.|| In 1896 Mr. A. D. Sapsworth, in an article from which I will make a short extract, assesses the settlement at some thousands.^ Ten years later, and Mr. Barrington re-visiting the Skelligs, puts the Gannets at from 15,000 to 20,000,** an increase, perhaps, in part due to the cessation of the harvesting of the young at St. Kilda, and one which in 1908 I found the Portmagee fishermen all confirmed ; I was glad to find they did not harbour any resentment to the birds on the ground of their proving fishing rivals. Mr. Sapsworth writes of this Gannetry, that it " looks like a huge conical beehive swarming with bees ; they arrived from all directions only to depart again on another * Thompson, "Birds of Ireland," iii., p 264. t " Zoologist," 1884, p. 477. + " Fowler in Ireland," p. 261. § " Zoologist," 1884, p. 478. II " Ibis," 1891, p. 9. Their breeding area was, however, still confined to the south side according to the lighthouse-keeper. f "The Field," Aiigust 22nd, 1896. **" Irish NaturaUst," 1906, p. 235. LITTLE SKELLIG 69 mackerel quest. Some are still building, and they fly within a few feet of our boat, with long strings of seaweed in their beaks. Evidently our approach is resented, for many come to meet us screaming with an incessant ' Carack ! Carack ! ' ... Gannets' nests are everywhere, and each ledge and flat is lined with them. The nest is a circular mass of grass and seaweed, from 12 inches to 15 inches in diameter, and some are as much as 18 inches in height, the gradual accumulation of years. They lay one egg only, which at flrst is a bluish-white, but soon becomes soiled, for the Gannet is not a cleanly bird in its domestic arrangements, although its toilet is all that could be desired. The head and neck of the adult bird are tinged with pale buff colour, body and wings spotlessly white, with the exception of the primaries, which are black ; their length from beak to tip of tail about 3 feet, and with wings extended they measure 4 feet [query 6 feet ?] across. Very loth were they to leave their nests, and allowed us to approach within a few feet, when they would hastily disgorge a decapitated mackerel or gurnet, sometimes two or three partially digested, but in every case the heads had been disposed of. . . ." A. D. Sapsworth {I.e., 1896). Nowhere do Gannets by choice breed far from a precipice, because their readiest way of taking flight is to let themselves 70 THE GANNET fall into space, and I was told at Portmagee that to clamber up to their nests required a good deal of care, if the climber wished to avoid a blow from a descending Gannet, which might easily be very serious. According to the lighthouse-keeper the date of the first Gannet seen on the Little Skellig in four years was found to vary from February 6th to February 28th, and that of the last Gannet seen on the same rock between September 26th and November 7th.* On the Greater SkeUig there are many birds, including Storm-Petrels, but Gannets are not known to have ever bred there. The Bull Rock. Its Modern History. — Seventeen miles southward of the Skelligs there is another Gannetry, on the coast of Cork — Bull Rock — the history of which is, like that of Grasholm, somewhat obscure. Mr. S. N. Hutchins, of Bantry, visited this rock in 1868,t but I learn from Mr. Hutchins that this settlement was in existence before that, for about 1858 Dean Hallahan and Mr. Henry Puxley were there, and found * " Migration of Birds," by R. M. Barrington, p. 252. This book contains a great many dates of Gannets' movements taken at different seasons by the lighthouse-keepers for Mr. Barrington. t "Zoologist," 1882, p. 110. BULL ROCK 71 eleven Gannets' nests. Mr. Hutchins has elicited a few facts bearing on the question from an old fisherman named Tim Harrington, namely, that, as far back as 1853 he saw Gannets on the Bull, and in 1856 found nests there, and these are the earliest authenticated. When Mr. Hutchins was at the Bull in 1 868 many hundreds of Gannets were well established and nesting, and from that time onwards this settlement has flourished. Although the historian Smith (1756) expressly says the Gannet bred nowhere in Munster except on the Skelligs, yet so inaccessible a place as the Bull may easily have been unknown to him, and it is unlikely that it had not been used before. Probably there has been interchange for a great number of years between the Bull and the SkelHg, and the former being the smaller settlement may even sometimes have been quite deserted by Gannets. An excellent account of a visit to the Bull Rock, in June, 1884, by Messrs. Ussher and Barrington, from which I will make a short extract, will be found in the "Zoologist" for 1884 (p. 473). After assessing its then strength at 2,000, and describing the appearance of the Rock, the former continues : "On ascending the [Bull] Rock we found we could get to some of the Gannets' building ledges, both at the east and west ends, and a few of the birds remained on their nests until 72 THE GANNET we approached within a pace of them. The nests were in- variably of seaweed, with occasionally a little grass, not so well-built as those of Cormorants. Each usually contained one egg or young bird, but in two instances I saw nests THE BULL. containing two eggs each. On emptying one of these pairs I found one egg fresh, the other decidedly sat upon, so that they may have been laid by different birds. Most of the eggs, from their soiled appearance, must have been sat upon some time. The naked black young, newly-hatched, contrasted quaintly with those that had assumed the white downy covering which added greatly to their apparent BULL ROCK 73 growth. One nest contained a half -digested fish about the size of a mackerel. The harsh croaking cry of the Gannets was very striking. They are courageous birds : numbers of them sat while blasting took place close by, the splinters falling in showers around them. . . ." In 1891 the strength of the Bull population was reduced to 220,* which was attributed by some to the blasting operations mentioned by Mr. Usslier, but it may have been equally due to depredations by the workmen. The fluctuations in this Gannetry are curious, and one would like to know if the numbers of the other rock birds breeding there have been similarly affected : Professor Newton, when sailing close past the Bull in 1899, did not see more than a hundred or so Gannets, but by 1902 Mr. Crowley, the lighthouse-keeper, believed their numbers had recovered to close on 2,000. It is certain that this improvement did not last, for in 1908 Crowley's successor, Mr. Hamilton, only puts the Gannets at 600, and decreasing each season. Neither from the Skellig nor the Bull have the young Gannets ever been systematically utihsed for food, and never at all that we have any record of for their grease or feathers, but a resident in the vicinity remembers a few being brought ashore for eating, and one of the fishermen * Barrington, " Migration of Birds," p. 260. 74 THE GANNET told me he had seen young ones hanging up with bacon in Kerry cabins. In the table to be given I think I shall be justified in ranking the Skellig Gannets at 16,000, and the present strength of the Bull at 500 ; indeed, as regards the former, I might probably go rather higher with safety, but throughout this book I shall endeavour not to err as some former writers have done on the side of exaggeration, the other way being the less evil of the two. There is some reason for believing that Gannets formerly bred on " The Stags " of Broadhaven, Co. Mayo (Thompson, " Birds of Ireland," III., p23. 264, 451), but the supposition receives little credit from Messrs. Warren and Barrington (c/. "Zoologist," 1884, pp. 474, 479), nor does it get any confirmation from Mr. Ussher's enquiries (Ussher's " Birds of Ireland," p. 157). Yet it may be to these Stags that Smith in his " State of Kerry " (1756) refers when he says : " I have been informed that there is another rock on the north coast of Ireland where they [Gannets] alight and breed." If they ever did breed on the coast of Mayo, it is not likely that the fact will ever be established now. CHAPTER IV. AILS A CRAIG. Ailsa Craig, on the coast of Ayrshire — The Early History of its Gannets — Present State of the Settlement — Remains of Dead Gannets — Number of Gannets at the present time on Ailsa. Its Early History. — Next to the Bass Rock, the most accessible Gannets' breeding-place, and a fairly well-known one, is Ailsa Craig, the position of which, in the Firth of Clyde, is shown on the map. There will be no difficulty in finding plenty to say about the modern history of this grand Gannetry, but, unfortunately, we do not know nearly as much of its past as we should like, there being no original information extant about it before the journal of Sir William Brereton in 1635, which is to be lamented. Compared too with the better - known Bass Rock, the authorities for the annals of Ailsa are very few, and a reason for this may be found in the circumstance of Ailsa coming within notice of passing ships to a less degree than the Bass Rock, nor was it ever of any military value as a fortress, like the Bass, nor was there in its proximity any great seat of culture like Edinburgh. There exists one ancient charter which makes mention of Ailsa, and this and Fordun's Cp FIRTH CLYDE Ailsa Craig THE COAST OF AYRSHIRE. AILSA CRAIG 77 bare notice of it are believed to be the first mention of tlie Craig by name ; it is a cliarter granted by King Robert III. in 1404, confirming possession to Crosraguel Abbey.* '""""'^W^^m^^\ AILSA CRAIG. 1. The earliest reference to Ailsa Gannets is that by * See " Annals of the Andersonian Naturalists' Society," 1900, II., p. 136. Mr. H. B. Watt informs me that this charter has been printed by the Ayrshire and Galloway Archaeological Association in " Charters of the Abbey of Crosraguel " (1886, Vol. I.), and that the words applying to Ailsa are : " Item, insulam de Ilysay cum pertinenciis," no mention what ever being made of Solan Geese. 78 THE GANNET Hector Boethius (or Boece), in 1526, in his " 8cotorum Historise a prima Gentis origine,"* in ^vhich there is the following (translated) passage : " Ailsay ; quhair sicHk plente of soland geis is, as we schew afore, in the Bass."t 2. In 1549 Donald Monro, High Dean of the Isles {i.e., Hebrides) thus alludes in his " Description of the Western Isles of Scotland called Hybrides,'" through most of which he travelled, to Ailsa Craig, which he spells Elsay : " Elsay an iyl, ane myle lang, quherin is ane grate high hill, round and roughe, and ane heavin [haven], and als [also] aboundance of Soland geise." The " Description " is from the Dean's narrative of his travels, the first printed issue of which is stated to have been published in 1774, but there is no reason for thinking that he had been on Ailsa, or he would have told us more about it. Like Boethius he had some informant, but I am at a loss to know where he could have found a haven, of which there is now no trace, though the Lighthouse Commissioners have erected a small wooden jetty. 3. Next in order is the incidental mention by Bishop Lesly in his work " De Origine," etc.^ (1578),§ from which * Vol. I., XLVI. Published at Paris in 1526, and translated ten years later — the year of the author's death— by Bellenden. t Boece's account of the Bass will be given later. J " De origine Moribus et i-ebus gestis Scotorum." § Two years after this, 1580, Sir James Balfour writes " in this lylland there is the ruins of ane old Castell and Chaj)ell, possest by the Earls of Cassilis," but he says nothing of Soland Geese. AILSA CRAIG 79 a long extract will be given under Bass Rock. He merely says " Elissa, a craig in the sey foranent Galloway," where is to be found " ane foul," commonly called '' ane Solande Guse." Further on, Lesly says of Ailsa that it " abundes in Solend Geis, and monie utheris Sey foulis," but when alluding to Ailsa, in his account of the Bass Rock, he says they are not so abundant as at the Bass, which is contrary to present experience. 4. In John Monipennie's " Abridgement or Summarie of the Scots Chronicles " (1597, but printed in 1603), there is the following scanty mention of Ailsa Craig, probably copied from the " godly and diligent " Donald Monro, as he terms him, though his spelling of Solan is different : " There are many conies and sea-fowles in it, specially of that kind which wee call Solayne Geese." 5. We next come to Sir William Brereton's diary of his travels — to that portion which he kept in Scotland in July, 1635.* * " Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland, and Ireland, MDCXXXIV-V.," by Sir William Brereton, Bart. Printed fertile Chetham Society, 1844 (p. 117). Brereton's "Travels" which have been republished in "Early Travellers in Scotland." 1891, by Mr. Hume Brown, also form the subject of an article by Mr. J. E. Harting (" Field," August 13th, 1904), and a still more valuable one by Mr. T. Southwell (" Norwich Naturalists' Tr.," VII., [). BOO). Brereton sub- sequently distinguished himself as a Parliamentary general, defeating Aston in 1643, and Rupert in 1644: his account of the Bass will be given in the next chapter. 80 THE GANNET " Upon the way hence [from Glasgow] to Erwin [Irvine] we discovered many islands, and, amongst the rest, the great isle of Arran. . . . One more remarkable isle, hence shows itself at forty miles distant ; this is placed in the sea about sixteen miles* from shore. It is a mighty high rock, seeming very steep and high, round at the top ; the name of it is Ellsey [Ailsa], and it belongs to my Lord Castle [Cassilis] ; not inhabited, but with abundance of fowl, and two earies of Goose-hawks, t this year stolen by some Highlanders. This rock was in our view three days, whilst we travelled betwixt sixty and seventy mile, and, when you are at a great distance, it presents itself in shape like a sugar-loaf, and when you approach nearer it seems lower and flatter at the top, but it is to be a much-to-be-admired piece of the Lord's workmanship. In this isle of Ellsey, which is my Lord Castle's, there breed abundance of Solemne Geese, which are longer-necked and bodied than ours, and so extreme fat are the young as that when they eat them, they are placed in the middle of the room, so as all may have access about it ; their arms stripped up and linen cloaths placed before their cloaths, to secure them from being defiled from the fat thereof, which doth besprinkle and besmear all that come near unto it." * Only nine miles. f No doubt eyries of the Peregrine Falcons, but only one pair breeds there now. AILSA CRAIG 81 This description of a Gannet feast does not sound very appetising, but the story makes one wish that Brereton had landed upon the Craig, to which, as Professor Newton judges from the journal, he would have been opposite on the mainland about the first week in July. I have not elsewhere met with the name Solan spelt " Solemne," and this peculiar spelling may possibly be a copyist's error. 6. Mr. John Paterson, to whom I am indebted for much other information, has furnished a reference to William Abercrummie's " Description of Carrick [the southern district of Ayrshire] in 1696."* Here the reader is apprised of there being on Ailsa Craig " Store of Solan Geese in so great plenty, that the very poorest of the people eat of them in their season at easie rates : besides other sea-fowles, which are brought from Ailsa, of the bigness of ducks, and of the taste of Solan Geese, and are called Alhanacks, or Ailsa Cocks, and Tarnathans, of which there is so great a multitude about that Isle, that when, by the shot of a piece, they are put upon the wing, they will darken the heavens above the spectators. This Ailsa is * " Historic Ayrshire," 1891, edited by William Robertson, Vol. I., p. 8G. 82 THE GANNET a rock in the sea, in which those Solan Geese nestle and breed ; in which also there be conies and wild Doves." " Albanacks " were Puffins, but there is no such name as " Tarnathan " known now, nor is it in the Gaelic dictionary. The editor of " The Annals of Scottish Natural History " plausibly suggests that " Tarnathans " were Guillemots. 7. Some of the historians of the eighteenth century, as, for example, Sir Robert Sibbald (1710), J. Steyer (1718), and Daniel Defoe (1722), allude to the Gannets on Ailsa Craig, but have no first-hand information to offer about them, apparently merely copying from previous writers. 8. The visit of Thomas Pennant, the author of "The British Zoology," to Ailsa in 1772, some four years after that book was written, perhaps hardly comes under the denomination of early history. His ship lay two nights by the Craig, of which he gives two pictures in his " Tour in Scotland " (II., p. 215), but he tells us little about the birds ; at that time the Craig was the property of the Earl of Cassils,* who received £33 a year rent for it, which the tenant must have partly paid out of the profits of his * Cassils, or Cassilis, one of the titles of the present Marquis of Ailsa, before the creation of the marquisate. AILSA CRAIG 83 birds. If Pennant's visit had been before instead of after the publication of " The British Zoology," we could not have failed to have had some account of the birds seen by him on this famous breeding station of sea-fowl. The Present Condition of Ailsa Craig Gannetry. — Lying some nine miles off the coast of Ayrshire, this mighty Craig, formed of columnar syenite, rears its great head heaven- wards— 1,114 feet high by Ordnance Survey — and certainly covers twice the area of the Bass Rock, if not more, and I think there are more Gannets on it. The most striking feature is its basaltic or rather syenitic columns, stated to be four, five, and six-sided, resembling, says the Rev. R. Lawson (who has written a useful guide book), the columns of Staffa, or Giant's Causeway, although not so perfectly formed. " From the base to the summit, every here and there, the tops of these columns have been broken off ; and it is on the flat surface of these broken columns that the birds [Gannets] nestle."* Any inequality is also taken advantage of, several Gannets sometimes making use of the top of a single column, and not always with the appearance of security, so that Mr. Lawson thought it wonderful that some stormy night the *" Ailsa Craig: its History and Natural History," by the Rev. li. Lawson, Paisley, 1895. g2 84 THE GANNET nests were not all swept into the sea, but the seaweed of which they are built is not without adhesive properties. Here birds of such conservative habits as Gannets must have nested from time immemorial, and although at one period, owing to persecution, their numbers diminished, they gradually recovered after the passing of The Sea Birds Act in 1869, which protected Gannets everywhere except at St. Kilda. In those days the late Mr. Robert Gray, then of Glasgow, was one who befriended these Gannets with his pen in the " Times." Now they are still increasing and have no need of a champion. This, at any rate, is the opinion of Mr. W. Girvan, who has long been tenant* or tacksman of the Craig under the Marquis of Ailsa, and no one is better qualified to offer an opinion. Certainly their breeding ground now covers fully three-quarters of a mile of cliff, but there is still plenty available for further spreading. No Gannets nest on the grass slopes, of which the upper portion of the Craig is composed, nor have they ever done so as far as Mr. Alexander Thomson, the principal keeper of the lighthouse, is aware. This is rather remarkable, because we know that the grass slopes of the Bass Rock used to be largely occupied ; but here also the presence of visitors may have driven them away. * Two brothers, William and Andrew Girvan, are, Mr. Harvie-Brown informs me, jointly tenants of the Craig. AILSA CRAIG 85 There are few who will forget a first visit to Ailsa Craig : mine was with a friend, no longer living, more than forty years ago, when the young Gannets were still gathered every summer, but this practice has ceased now. The method of despatching them was evidently the same as at the Bass, for I remember our rowing down a fine young bird which was recovering from a terrible blow on the back of its neck, no doubt inflicted by the fowlers, who generally killed them with a billhook or cudgel, and pitched them into the sea. That this bird should have lived after such treatment, and been in good condition, too, with a wound the size of an orange, proves what Dr. R. 0. Cunningham has noticed, viz., the facility with which they recover from accidents, and the rapidity with which re-ossification of their broken bones takes place* Young Gannets were thought fairly good for the table at Girvan at that time, but it is not likely they were ever esteemed of the same value as at the Bass. Ailsa Gannets were only sold for consumption among the lower classes, together with Puffins and Guillemots, and were eaten by those who could not afford mutton and beef. I have since learnt that the prices which they realised were ridiculously * A young one, macerated by Dr. Cunningham, wliich had by some means fractured furculum, pelvis, and sternum, in fact every bone in its body, had already in a few months got all these injuries repaired by ossification and the natural effusion of callus. 86 THE GANNET small, and since about 1880 there has been absolutely no demand for them for eating, consequently the harvest of the Craig has been discontinued for many years, greatly to the benefit of all the birds, though not altogether to the satisfaction of the lessee, who paid to the Marquis of Ailsa a rent of £30. Although Puffins were taken in great numbers, and also Guillemots, from what I can glean the harvest of young Gannets never exceeded 400 or 500, which is less than one-third of what used to be gathered at the Bass. But Gannets' eggs, which were not in request at the Bass, were liked here, and the more accessible of them are still collected and eaten with relish. Gray and Anderson give a few interesting particulars of this Ailsa industry.* According to their figures the number of sea-birds taken weekly on Ailsa Craig, by means of cliff nets, used to average 1 50 dozen in the season, chiefly Puffins and Guillemots, with some Gannets. If this went on for ten weeks, the number would have mounted up to 18,000, and probably all of them breeding birds, which could not fail to have its effect. These we learn from another writer, were brought over by the boat-load and hawked up and down the towns and villages on the mainland, where, says Mr. J. Macrae (" Land and Water," August 12th, 1871), the old Girvan bellman could * " Birds of Ayrshire and Wigtownshire," 1869, p. 62, and " Birds of the West of Scotland," p. 436. AILSA CRAIG 87 be heard crying them, first giving three rings of the bell, and then calling out aloud : " Ailsa cocks, cleaned, and ready for the pot, 2d. each. Peaties and Strainies, Id. each, cleaned." The " cocks " I learn from Mr. Thomson were Guillemots. and the " Peaties " and " Strainies " Puffins and Razorbills.* In 1905 I was at the Craig again, this time accom- panied by Mr. A. Parker and Mr. Henry Gurney, when we spent four busy summer days on the island, sleeping at the lighthouse and watching the birds, having, ideal weather for exploring the rock from June 27th to the 30th. What made this second visit the more interesting was that it was at a date almost identical with the visit of Thomas Pennant, the author of " The British Zoology," who, however, has disappointingly little to tell us (" Tour in Scotland," 11. , p. 215) about the Gannets or any other birds. Both Mr. Parker and Mr. Gurney had brought cameras with them, and took photographs of the Craig for me, but I think a view by Mr. Charles Kirk, of Glasgow, gives, on the * There was also a trade in feathers, and Mr. Paterson tells me there is a letter of Robert Burns, the poet, which proves that the feathers, of which he asks a friend for a few stone, had a market value as far back as 1788. But these also were extremely cheap, never rising above 16s. a stone, although at the Bass they made a little more. They told us on the Craig that the feathers of about 384 Puffins went to a stone, and that it took three stone of feathers to make a bed — that means the lives of 1,152 Puffins ! According to the late Mr. E. T. Booth the feathers of nearly 100 Gannets are required to weigh a stone, so each Gannet produces almost as many feathers as four Puffins. In St. Kilda 80 young Gannets go to a barrel (Mackenzie). 88 THE GANNET whole, the best idea of its grim aspect. On the left of the photograph are the west cliffs, where the Gannets breed in what looks like inaccessible security, while on the right can be seen the old tower which Pennant found such difficulty in climbing up to. As we reached this square tower a fine old Raven, disturbed in his repast, rose from the ground, leaving a half-eaten rat behind him. A few pairs of these birds breed in the cliffs every year — long may they continue to do so, and keep the rats, of which there are too many, in check. We afterwards saw five Ravens on the wing together. Mr. Thomson, who acted as our guide, informed us that the arrival and departure of the Gannets were much the same as at the Bass — that is, they come at the end of February, and nearly all quit the Craig in October, being of all the fowl the first to come and the last to go ; and for this a sufficient reason may be found in the fact of their requiring a longer period for the incubation of their eggs, as well as for the nurture and up-bringing of their young. It is only on the most precipitous cliffs, which Mr. Lawson says are known as the Main or Goose Craigs, and which face westwards, that the Gannets are found, and here their breeding area extends, though not without interruptions, for fully three-quarters of a mile, from what is marked on ftr}\^u;pi^^ .':iht^iiS AILSA CRAIG 91 the map as Eagle's Nest to the south fog-horn, the blasts from which they do not mind. Indeed, there were Gannets everywhere,* and Mr. Thomson subsequently considered it to have been the best hatch for many years. Although Gannets' nests had not been altogether unfamiUar objects MAIN CRAIGS, AILSA. either to me or my brother-in-law, one reason of our visit was, of course, to see them again, but though in plenty, they * Mr. Kirk says he has generally found second year Gannets in the jjiebald plumage in groups apart from the adults, as if not breeding; the percentage of these second year birds did not seem to us quite so high as at the Bass, being about one in forty, and we did not notice any separation, such as Mr. Kirk alludes to. Mr. Bentley Beetham has also many times seen groups of immature Gannets resting on the top of th^ cliffs apart. 92 THE GANNET are not very accessible at Ailsa, and it requires nerve to clamber down to them.* As at the Bass Rock the nests are chiefly composed of seaweed, and great untidy heaps some of them are, while others are so trodden down that they hardly deserve the name of nests. As long ago as the fourteenth century the size of these substantial structures attracted attention, but as a matter of fact some are not more than eighteen inches in diameter. Besides the seaweed a great deal of the Red Campion and Bladder-Campion which grow upon Ailsa, is made use of, and I believe also stalks of the bracken, but they have their choice of materials for the flora of the Craig is luxuriant to the extent of rankness. " Nowhere," says Mr, Lawson, " will you see such beds of Wild Hyacinth, Red Campion, Bladder- Campion, and Scurvy-Grass. "t The Tree-Mallow is also found, and several kinds of fern, and many other plants known to botanists. As T expected, very few young Gannets were hatched by June 27th — the date of our visit — for which we were sorry. One youngster, about as large as a Turtle-Dove, and just below me, was donning its jacket of white down, while another, about two days' old, was of a dark grey tint, * Afterwards at the Bass Rock I found indiarubber-soled shoes very useful for rock climbing. •{• Lawson's " Ailsa Craig," p. GO. AILSA CRAIG 95 with a nearly bald head. When hatched they are nearly black, and practically naked, resembling, as has been aptly said, a toad more than a bird. Doubtless there were a few more young ones further down the precipice, had I had the pluck to descend, for Mr. T. C. Walker, who visited the same cliffs on the 20th of June, 1866, found several hatched. After describing the Rock, and the features which most struck him, he says : "In a few nests further down I observe several newly- hatched Gannets, totally black, with a downy powder like the germs of feathers. In several eggs the young are squeaking through the holes .... I break the shell and liberate several astonished youngsters, much to the discomfiture of the old birds, who hover round, cackling most ferociously. The young, when just hatched, have a curious look, little black imps with a big head, fat body, and tiny* webbed feet sprawling about the nest. They are perfectly bald, about four inches long, and very lively."! Very slow is the growth of the young, but their down soon comes. For a time the old bird keeps them warm with her body, but when the nestlings get too big for that, she places herself beside them, as shown in Mr. Kirk's photograph. At the Bass I have seen old Gannets sitting * At seven days Mr. Ivii-k finds the web measvu'es 1 J x 1{- inch, t " Zoologist," 1868, p. 1366. 96 THE GANNET beside offspring, which were so big that they almost equalled their parents in size. The period of juvenescence lasts a very long time compared with that of most species, from the laying of the egg to the flight of the young one being not less than fourteen weeks I feel sure. The young take to the sea in September, and from that time onwards, until they learn to fish for themselves, subsist on A GANNET ON ITS NEST. their own subcutaneous fat, the layers of which surround them like a jacket. How long this period of indolence lasts is unknown, but possibly several weeks elapse before they begin to fly ; it is true that early young ones may be seen already plunging for fish in the latter part of September, but these must be Gannets three months old at least. If there is a gale from the west or south during this month, Mr. Thomson tells me, numbers of young Gannets are to AILSA CRAIG 97 be seen, which have been blown round to the east side of the Craig, having been in some cases carried high over its grass slopes and dropped somewhere on the thirty acres of level ground by the lighthouse. I now settle myself in a safe position to watch the Gannets at leisure, with a guardian at hand in Mr. Thomson to catch hold of in case of giddiness. kSome of them are clearly returning from distant fishing, or seaweed hunting ; others are going out to sea with a settled purpose for something ; others again are seeking apparently for their rightful nests, which they may well have a difficulty in recognising among so many ; while still others are merely playing with the wind, wafted hither and thither as its slightest movement takes them. Backwards and forwards the Gannets circle ; to attempt to follow their mazy flight with eye or pencil is a futile task, but it is a never-to-be- forgotten scene, one which Mr. Walker well describes, and which impressed itself much on both me and my com- panions. Probably Gannets are often on the wing in winter time for forty or fifty hours at a stretch, without alighting to rest on the water, but less in the summer. As they pass and re-pass we have an opportunity of remarking that the toes are close folded, but the legs stretched out evidently to the full, though sometimes quite hidden in the plumage. It was easy to see this when now and then one soared 98 THE GANNET quite close overhead, but let there come a breath of wind, or a turning on the cliff, and instantly the feet drop into view, and their value for steerage, in conjunction with the rudder-like tail, becomes apparent. Carrying seaweed about is a favourite occupation, and although some may be taking it to their nests, others are flying about in an aimless way with the polished fronds of the common " Tangle " * dangling from their beaks. I am assured that they continually patch up their nests, and even go on adding seaweed to them down to the time when the young are ready to leave ; but that they make a circle of the seaweed and lay the egg on the bare rock in the middle, as some have thought, is not borne out by observation, nor can I for a moment credit the idea that the Gannet's white secretions assist in binding the seaweed to the rock. The celebrated Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, entertained a similar idea about the egg, which he had been told was bedewed, when laid, with a thick and viscid moisture, which set speedily, and thus the egg became soldered as it were, or agglutinated to the subjacent rock. That some of the nests are two or three years old is likely enough, but in that case they * Laminaria digitata and Fiicus vesiculosus. The late Professor J. H. Balfour identified 23 sjjecies of seaweed on Ailsa Craig (" Phytologist," 1845). WEST CLIFF, AELSA. WEST CLIFF. AILSA CRAIG 101 are repaired each summer, or the fabric would not hold together.* Looking down from above, one would say that this Gannet settlement was a fairly silent one, when it is quite at rest and there is no disturbing element, such as the presence of a climber on the ledges, at the same time there is certainly more noise to be heard when one stands on the shore below the Gannets, but even then it is principally the cries of the Kittiwake which fall on the ear. Row out a quarter of a mile, and, on a calm day, the hum of the busy hive sounds far and clear over the water, nevertheless a Gannet undisturbed is not the noisy bird which it has been represented to be, however much it cackles when alarmed. Before leaving home I had made a mental note to observe which way the Gannets and Guillemots, and other birds, sat or stood on their ledges when undisturbed, and whether they changed position according to the wind, which seemed likely, because there is generally method in birds' actions, and a reason for everything, even though we cannot discern it. The result was that we found most of the Gannets when sitting on their ledges faced the cliffs, turning their backs to the sea, as we noticed did many of the Guillemots, * At St. Kilda the late Rev. Neil Mackenzie says the nests are renewed from time to time as hatching goes on, and these materials decaying annually, form a small moimd which gets yearly larger ("Annals Scottish N.H.," 1905, p. 144). 102 THE GANNET and it proved to be just the same at the Bass Rock after- wards. This position may be assumed in part to save their long tails from abrasion. If there is any current of wind they would naturally by preference turn towards it to keep their plumage smooth, but failing that, they face the cliff. Fish eaten by Gannets. — Many of the Gannets were evidently at sea, fishing for themselves or their sitting mates, and Mr. Thomson and I could see them coming in from a distance ; a very long way off their white forms may be viewed as in parties of four or five they wing their straight course homewards, each of them probably bearing a gullet full of fish. The extensive Ballantrae herring bank, which is so near at hand, covering fifteen miles or more, must be a very convenient fishing ground for these Ailsa Gannets, and it is not to be wondered at that their proceedings at times excite some jealousy among the local fishermen. Many a pound of fish is daily brought to the Craig, fresh from the salt waters of the Firth of Clyde, as nutriment for their mates and young. If it is for themselves the fish takes a little time to digest, and for a period the old birds are to be seen, satiated with their repast, quietly dozing on their ledges until it is time to be hungry again and seek another meal. One old Gannet, which I suspect had not long returned to its ledge, was so alarmed, on suddenly seeing my head between herself and the sky, that she disgorged her dinner, consisting AILSA CRAIG 103 of two fresh undigested herrings.* The usual food of Ailsa Gannets, according to the testimony of those on the spot, consists of herringsj mackerel, sand-eels, and gurnards, all of which Mr. Thomson has at different times seen in their nests, and to this list the tenant of the Craig, Mr. Girvan, adds the garfish. In a later chapter a list will be given of all the fish on which Gannets have been known to feed, but herrings and mackerel are their customary food. These, with cod, haddocks, whitings, pollack and coal-fish (saithe), are abundant at no great distance. Gurnards are a source of danger to them, and in the previous year Mr. Girvan saw a Gannet which had been choked by one. It is worthy of note that the vicinity of Ailsa has long had a reputation for the quality and abundance of its fish. Donald Monro speaks of the " very good killing [of] ling and uther whyte fishes," and Pennant of " the capture of cod, which abound from January to April on the great bank " near. It is singular that so many fish should be found near the Craig, considering the presence of the birds, and the fact may be cited as an argument in favour of their preservation. t In 1877, eight years after the passing of the * Herring-Gulls are not above flying off witli fisli which a Gannet disgorges, on the contrary it is a booty they are on the look out for. f There are swarms of fish round St. Kilda, which is another favourite fishing ground for trawlers (see " St. Kilda," by N. Heathcote, p. 207). where Gannets brood by thousands. 104 THE GANNET Act to protect sea-birds, John Melville, fishery officer at Girvan, even reported an increase in the number of herrings ("Report on The Herring Fisheries," p. 146), which did not look as if the birds consumed too many. The fecundity of sea-fish is something altogether incredible, and the more they are preyed upon the more they seem to multiply ! At the Bass Rock there is an idea that the fish are attracted by the droppings of the birds, which seems quite possible. On one ledge of rock, running into the sea, on the west side of the Craig, called, I believe, Stranny Point, from which a small regiment of Gannets flew away on the boat's approach, lay two or three parcels of regurgitated fish, which had been ejected by the birds on being disturbed by our approach. It was not until I had landed, at some risk of a good wetting, that they were noticed, and at once carefully examined, when it was found that these ejected pellets consisted entirely of small fry. These pellets were of considerable size, and in one alone there were about fifty-eight little fish, which, from their condition, it was evident had not long been swallowed. The Gannets may have been swimming when they met and regaled themselves with a " ball " of pollack or coal-fish fry, little fish averaging less than two inches, as it seems improbable that they should have got them by plunging. AILSA CRAIG 105 Remains of Dead Gannets. — At low tide it is comparatively easy to walk round the Craig by dint of scrambling over large and small syenite boulders, among which it is sad to see the rotting carcases of defunct sea-birds, chiefly Gannets, from whatever cause they lie there. I counted the withered remains of seventy-three dead Gannets below the westCraigs, where the largest number breed, among which were a few second-year birds, but no young ones of the first year. Some of these unfortunates may have died a natural death, or been injured by falls when fighting, but Mr. Thomson says a good many are wantonly shot from yachts in summer, and some of them float ashore on the Craig, or, if wounded, have perhaps strength to reach a ledge and die there. Indeed, both here and at the Bass Rock I could see dead Gannets on the ledges with my glasses. It seems very regrettable that those who are at sea, whether they be yachtsmen or fishermen, should fire so much at these birds, which is often done for heedless sport, and not because a specimen is wanted for stuffing. The law, it must be remembered, is infringed, and perhaps several Gannets may be wounded for the chance of getting one, and when they are killed, Mr. Thomson says they are not always gathered, showing how little the so-called sports- man cares about them. Mr. C. W. Devis states how in March, 1865, the market at Manchester was inundated 106 THE GANNET with dead Gannets* for three weeks, which had all pro- bably been killed at Ailsa Craig, either in the thought- lessness of so-called sport or with the mistaken intention of benefiting the fishermen. At one spot beneath the cliff sixteen Gannets were lying together among the stones, how killed it was impossible to say. Many of them gave me the impression of having been dead several months, but here and there was one com- paratively fresh. They were lying high and dry on a part of the undercliff, not ordinarily reached by the tide, which may have swept others away ; if so, the mortality was all the larger. The Gannet is very liable to accidents, and it is not unlikely that some of them get carried against the cliffs in a gale, or during a fog, and strike the hard rock with so much violence as to be killed or injured. This is an accident which sometimes befalls the Manx Shearwater.! The Gannet is a bird which in some ways is a marvel of intelligence ; in other ways it is very much the reverse. For example, it will precipitate itself on a dead herring * " Zoologist," 1865, p. 9597. f I have found five-and-twenty Shearwaters in a walk in the Scilly Islands, most of them showing marks of a violent blow, and all dead. Storm Petrels are also known to dash themselves against the rocks occasionally when borne away by the wind (c/. Ussher "Birds of Ireland," I). 385). AILSA CRAIG 107 nailed to a board, and there are several anecdotes which I believe to be true of these over-eager birds killing themselves by plunging into boats attracted by the glitter of fresh caught fish in them. As an instance of what seems to us sheer stupidity, Mr. Thomson mentioned his having seen one dash itself against the walls of the lighthouse yard, on a clear, calm day, when there was absolutely nothing to account for such mad behaviour, unless it was suffering from any irritation caused by parasitical Mallofhaga, with which they are infested.* We found one unlucky Solan with a broken wing at the foot of the Craig, and two which were either sick or very sleepy, and these my friends captured, but not without difficulty, for they at once made for the water, albeit awkwardly, and we had already discovered that on that element a Gannet swimming is more than a match for a boat. One of these was sent by Mr. Parker to the Zoological Gardens, but not being supplied with enough fish it did not live very long. Gannets Enmeshed in Fishing Nets. — Besides perils from yachtsmen, Gannets have something else to contend with in the Firth of Clyde, for they are not infrequently enmeshed * A rase of one (lolit)eratoly killing itself against the balcony of a lightluiuse is given by Mr. Barrington (" Migration of Birds," p. 252). No Gannet lias been known to fl.\- against tlie lantern nf .the liglithouse at Ailsa or at the Bass. 108 THE GANNET and drowned in fishermens' nets, a fate which is caused by their voracity, and to which Mr. Lawson alludes in '■ Ailsa Craig."* Captain Digby, whose gunboat was appointed in January, 1877, to attend the winter fishery at Ballantrae herring bank, which extends from opposite Ailsa Craig to Loch Ryan, tells me that on one occasion he found quantities of small pieces of nets floating with dead herrings and Solan Geese entangled in them.f These nets had been, he ascertained, anchored the week before, where there was a depth of sixty feet of water, but the weather had been so bad that the swell shifted them, and they came to the surface. Whether the Gannets had got entangled in them when submerged at that depth, or whether it was from plunging on the herrings after the nets floated, was not certain. The harbour master at Girvan assures me that it is no uncommon matter for the fishermen to find Gannets which have dived as far down as their herring nets, and even to get them enmeshed in cod nets, when set at a depth of ninety feet, but to their great powers of diving I will allude again in Chapter X., and a very remarkable story of an incident which happened at Ballantrae, about fifteen miles from Ailsa, where a great number of drowned Gannets rose to the surface enmeshed in a 5-inch cod net will also be narrated in the same chapter. * t.c, p. 4G. t See " Rep. Herring Fish., Scotland," 1878, p. 101. AILSA CRAIG 109 Nurnber of Gannets on Ailsa. — It was June when we were at Ailsa, and on two days of our sojourn the sea was as calm as glass, and every swimming Guillemot and Puffin could be seen as in a mirror. With our minds full of the idea of taking a census of the birds, the notion forcibly suggested itself that in such ideal weather it would be possible to take a series of large photographs of the entire Gannet cliff area from the sea, on a scale which would admit of counting the Gannets with a magnifying glass afterwards. It would be necessary to divide the cliffs into six or eight sections, which perhaps it would be found practicable to indicate by large daubs of red and white paint at their base. I mentioned the plan to a very successful photographic artist, Mr. Charles Kirk, of Glasgow, and I beheve he con- siders it a feasible plan, and may possibly some day find an opportunity to undertake it. Mr. Kirk had already taken some excellent, and very large, views, but these are from the land, and not divided into sections. One of the best of them, taken from a projecting part of the chff, includes a large stretch of the breeding ground, for it shows under a magnifying glass about 855 white specks, which have been counted, and the greater part of which are un- doubtedly Gannets. I think Mr. Kirk would agree that this photograph takes in as much as a sixth part of the whole breeding area. From this we can draw a conclusion. no THE GANNET for if we compute that 750 of the 855 specks on the photograph are Gannets, and reckon that nearly half of them — say 350 — had mates away at sea fishing, we at once arrive at 1,100 Gannets as belonging to the area comprised in the photograph. Multiply 1,100 by six similar areas, and we get a total of 6,600 Gannets as comprising the whole community. Another method of estimating the Ailsa Gannets has been furnished by Mr. Thomson. He remembered well that, very shortly before our visit, which was in June, two young men, the sons of the lessee, had, by skilful climbing and the use of a rope, gathered 360 Gannets' eggs from one ledge, or tier of ledges, which extended a good way. My companions and I saw this ledge from the land, and also contemplated it from the sea, and we considered that the Gannets were slightly thicker there than at any other spot on the cliffs. If we allow the occupants of this ledge to have numbered 850, for although a less number would suffice to have produced 360 eggs some might be non-breeders, and say that the Gannets on it comprised a seventh part of the Ailsa community, the entire number would stand at 5,950. There is still a third way of estimating a Gannet settle- ment, which is by comparison. Take the largest Goose farm in England, where the number of Geese kept in a domesticated state is registered, and compare that known AILS A CRAIG HI number, or, rather, the space occupied with them, with the unknown Gannets on Ailsa Craig. It appears on inquiry that the largest Goose farm is Mr. Harrison's, at Halsall, in Lancashire, where there are 8,000 Geese. Mr. Harrison has obliged me with a photograph of his birds, and I should say there were nearly as many Gannets seen by us at Ailsa as he has Geese. It is, however, very difficult to form a correct notion from a photograph, but if anyone who had recently inspected the Gannets at Ailsa or the Bass found a favourable opportunity of seeing one of the large Goose farms, he could probably form a fairly just comparison between them and the Gannets. Perhaps this mode will not be thought a very good way of dealing with the numbers of birds, but still it is a plan which need not be set aside. To be on the safe side I do not propose to reckon Ailsa as having more than 6,500 Gannets. Neither Mr. H. Gurney nor I thought it a much larger Gannetry than that of the Bass Rock, which, judging from the numbers of young ones formerly taken, we rate at 6,000 only. I am well aware that 6,500 is a figure much below some of the estimates which have been formed of Ailsa Gannets ; for example, one who knows Ailsa well, suggests as high a population of Gannets as 30,000, but then these figures are hypothetical and have no basis to go on, and can only be accepted as the 112 THE GANNET guess of an observant man. This great hive of Gannets has never thrown off any colonies that we know of, but on May 25th, 1883, Mr. R. Service found two Gannets' nests on the Big Scaur, one of them containing a broken egg, and he saw the pair of old birds flying close at hand. The Big Scaur is a precipitous rock on the south of Wigtownshire, lying between the Mull of Galloway and Burrow Head, and would be by sea about fifty miles from Ailsa Craig, from where presumably these Gannets came. We made no attempt to assess the numbers of the other birds on the Craig, but Mr. Kirk is of opinion that there are quite five times as many Pufhns at Ailsa as there are Gannets, and nearly as many Guillemots, but Mr. Thomson thinks the Puffins are decreasing in numbers, owing to rats. Anyhow there are plenty, and the noise caused by the " whish " of Puffins shooting through the air, as they descend from the upper parts of the Craig with the velocity of a Falcon, is quite alarming to anyone who does not know whence the weird sound originates, often continuing as it does far into the night. We heard several of these Puffins' descents as late as 10.30 p.m., but the Gannets, Mr. Thomson says, are not on the wing at that time of night. The whole Craig is a marvel of life, and, given fine weather, AILSA GANNETS SEEN FROM ABOVE. AILS A CRAIG 115 one of the most enjoyable spots in the world. In a poem by the Rev. J. T. Levens we read : — " The feathered fishers of the deep Have cliosen Ailsa for their home, And in their thousands fleck its steep And naked crags, like flakes of foam." Wordsworth and John Keats have also sung its praises. 1 -1 CHAPTER V. ST. KILDA, SULISGEIR AND THE STACK. The St. Kilda Islands — Borrera, Stack Lii, Stack an Armine — Early History of these three Settlements — Martin's Estimate of the Gannets — Dr. Wiglesworth's Estimate — Sulisgeir — The number of Gannets there — The Stack of Suliskerry. St. Kilda. The Early History of its Gannets. — Of all the Gannet settlements that at St. Kilda is the most important, as it is the most central.* Here every year a vast number of these singular birds nest, and rear their young on three lofty- island stacks, which. are all in close proximity to one another, and forming part of the St. Kilda group. Our first knowledge of the island of St. Kilda is comprised in two brief mentions of it to be found in Fordun's celebrated " Scotichronicon," of which the first passage tells almost nothing, but the second — penned, perhaps, between 1360 and 1388 — while making no mention of birds, draws attention to the half-wild sheep which had been at some earlier period introduced * See map, p. 38. ST. KILDA 117 on to this island, then called Hirth.* Neither does Hector Boethius (1527),t to whom we owe the first notice of Gannets at Ailsa, mention birds at St. Kilda, but he alludes to the sheep. He says : " This last He is namit Hirtha, quhilk in Irsche, is callit ane scheip [sheep] ; for in this He is gret nowmer of scheip, ilk ane gretar than ony buk," which, in respect of the size of their horns, was afterwards noticed by Martin. Bishop Lesley (1578) and John Monipennie (1603) take a certain amount of notice of St. Kilda, but they again do not allude to its birds. In 1549 Donald Monro gives a fairly long account of St. Kilda,:]: but he had not been there, and his information was very imperfect ; all he has to say about the birds is that falcons and wild fowls build in this fair isle, and that McCloyd " his stewart, went there for dewties in miell (? meal) and reisted (dried)§ mutton, wyld foullis reisted, and selchis (seals)." With Sir Robert Sibbald it is different, for it can but be St. Kilda that he had in his mind when in his " Scottia Illustrata " (1684), in speaking of the Gannet, he wrote : " Non solum * Lib. II., cap. X. t " The Cosmographe and Description of Albion." BoUenden's edition, XLVII. X No. 158 of Monro's list. § Jamieson, who qiiotos this passage, interprets "reist" to dry by the heat of the sim. "Scottish Diet." 118 THE GANNET autem in Insula Bassa, sed & in Alisd & aliis ex iEbudibus [Hebrides] nidulantur."* 1. The first authority on St. Kilda birds, and a good one, too, was Martin Martin. He hved in Skye, and was tutor and estate factor to the McLeod family, to whom the island then belonged, as it does now. Mr. J. Mackenzie tells me that in the vouchers for his salary still in existence at Dunvegan Castle, Martin is described as " Governor." He visited St. Kilda on the occasion of the Rev. John Campbell being ap- pointed minister to the islanders, and has left posterity a little work of 158 pages of the highest interest to naturalists, entitled " A Late Voyage to St. Kilda," hy M. Martin, Gent., 12mo (1698), with a map, of which a facsimile is given. f A second edition of the " Voyage " was published in 1716, a third in 1749, and a fourth in 1753. I have had no oppor- tunity of collating these editions, but I learn from Mr. W. H. Mullens that the fourth edition, though stated to be " corrected," is, as far as the birds are concerned, practically * In his " History of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross," published 1710, Sibbald says there are Gannets "in the desart Isles, adjacent to Hirta, called St. Kilda's Isle, and in a desart Isle belonging to Orkney," but Sibbald wrote this twelve years after Martin's work — to be mentioned next — was published. I Martin's map, as well as the facsimile of the title-j^age to his " Voyage." are here borrowed from an appreciative article by Mr. W. H. Mullens in "British Birds" (1908. p. 173) A L A T E VOYAGE T O StKILDA, Tihe Hemoteft of all the HEBRIDES, O R Weflern Ifles of Scotland. WITH A Hiftory of the Ifland , Natural , Moral , and Topographical. Wherein is an Account of their Cuiloms , Religion , Fifh , Four], &c As alfo a Rela- tion of a late I M P O S T O R there, pretended to be Scnr by St. John Bapnji. Hj Wl. MARTIN, Gfwr. L O N D O N : Printed fori) Brown, and T. Goodwin . At the Black Swan inA Bihle. without Tcmfle-Bar ; and at the ilueens Htad againfl Sc Dun/}ar>'i Church in FUnJheet. M DC XC VIII. 120 THE GANNET the same as the first. In the same year as the second edition of Martin's " Voyage " was pubhshed, there also appeared a second edition of his " Description of the Western Islands of Scotland " (1716), which Mr, Mullens informs me is very much corrected from the first in 1 703. In this "Description," which contains many references to natural history, the contents of the " Voyage " are somewhat abridged, but subsequently they were reprinted in full in the " Mis- cellanea Scotica,"* as well as by Pinkerton in his col- lection of voyages and travels, besides being largely copied by Buchan,t who was at St. Kilda in 1705.| Martin's narrative is not only the first which describes the birds of St. Kilda, but it is the first written by anyone from personal knowledge of the islands. In the preface, which was seemingly not written by himself, an account is given in vivid terms, of the difficulties and perils through which he, with his crew, passed in their voyage to the island. Eventually they were led by watching the flight of the sea-fowl to direct their course to Borrera, which they found covered with a prodigious number of Solan Geese, * (1818), II., p. 154. •j- " Description of St. Kilda," by the Rev. A. Buchan, 1741. f Besides this " Voyage " Martin had the year before written an earlier treatise on the North Islands of Scotland, for "The Philosophical Transactions " (1697, No. VI.). 122 THE GANNET and here after passing a night of anxiety they obtained a calm, and reached St. Kilda by rowing, two days later. The islanders, who numbered 180, received them with a " God save you," and assigned to them a maintenance, consisting partly of eggs, of which in three weeks, such was their liberality, they had bestowed upon them 16,000, of which a good many were the large eggs of the " Lavy," or Guillemot.* One wonders not so much at the islanders collecting 16,000 eggs, which would be an easy task, as at the capacity which Martin and his crew possessed to eat so many, but they had an astringent effect, and the men presently became costive and feverish. Eventually Martin and his coadjutor restored them all to health.! Of Stack Lii, or " Ly," as he spells it, which Martin found an opportunity of visiting, though he does not say that he attempted to ascend it, he gives a rather full account, describing the rock as of a blueish colour at a distance, but when approached it proved to be " perfectl}'' white with Solan Geese sitting on and about it. "J The natives told him that Stack Lii afforded them five, six, or seven thousand Solan Geese in a year, provided the wind did not disappoint them of their harvest. * Eighteen eggs of the Lavy per diem for each man. t t.c, p. 65. X p. 39. ST. KILDA 123 Borrera, Martin informs us, fed 400 sheep in his time, " and would Feed more, did not the Solan Geese pluck a large share of the Grass for their nests "...." There are about Forty Stone Pyramids in this Isle, for drying and preserving their Fowls, etc. These little Houses are all of loose Stones, and seen at some distance ; there is also here a very surprising number of Fowls, the Grass as well as the Rocks filled with them. The Solan Geese possess it for the most part ; they are always Masters wherever they come, and have already banished several Species of Fowls from this Isle."* Of Stack an Armine, which abbreviating the preposition he spells " Stack-Narmin," Martin says : " this Rock is Half a Mile in circumference This Rock abounds with Solan Geese and other Fowls ; here are several Stone Pyramids, as well for Lodging the Inhabitants that attend the Seasons of the Solan Geese, as for those that preserve and dry them and other Fowls, etc.""^ He then describes his visit to Armine and his safe return from the Rock with 800 of the preceding year's dried Gannets, which after being cast together in a heap, were shared out to the men, each Gannet having a distinguishing mark on its foot, peculiar to the owner, " The Solan Geese," says Martin, " Hatch + by turns ; * i^p. 42, 43. t P- 44. J p. oO. 124 THE GANNET when it returns from its Fishing [it] carries along with it Five or Six Herrings in its Gorget, all entire and un- digestedj upon whose arrival at the Nest, the Hatching Fowl puts its Head in the Fisher's Throat, and pulls out the Fish with its Bill as with a Pincer, and that with very great noise ; which I had occasion frequently to observe. They continue to pluck Grass for their Nests from their coming in March till the Young Fowl is ready to Fly in August or September, according as the Inhabitants take or leave the First or Second Eggs. It's remarkable of them, that they never pluck Grass but on a Windy day ; the reason of which I enquired of the Inhabitants, who said that a Windy day is the Solan Goose's Vacation from Fishing, and they bestow it upon this Employment, which proves fatal to many of them ; for after their fatigue they often fall asleep, and the Inhabitants laying hold on this opportunity, are ready at hand to knock them on the Head ; their Food is Herring, Mackrels, and Syes * ; English Hooks are often found in the Stomachs both of Young and Old Solan Geese, though there be none of this kind used nearer than the Isles Twenty Leagues distant ; the Fish pulhng away the Hooks in those Isles go to St. Kilda, or are carried by the Old Geese thither ; whether of the two the Reader is at liberty to judge." The latter supposition is I think the more probable of the two. * The Coal Fish, Gadus virens. ST. KILDA 125 " The Solan Geese," continues Martin, " are always the surest sign of herrings, for where-ever the one is seen the other is always not far off. There is a Tribe of Barren Solan Geese which have no Nests and sit upon the bare Rock ; these are not the Young Fowls of an Year Old, whose dark Colour would soon distinguish them, but Old ones, in all things like the rest ; these have a Province, as it were, allotted to them, and are in a separated state from the others, having a Rock Two hundred Paces distant from all other; neither do they meddle with, or approach to those Hatching, or any other Fowls. They Sympathize and Fish together ; this being told me by the Inhabitants, was afterwards confirmed to me several times by my own Observation. The Solan Geese have always some of their Number that keep Centinal in the Night-time, and if they are surprised (as it often happens) all that Flock are taken one after another ; but if the Centinal be awake at the approach of the creeping Fowlers, and hear a Noise, it cries softly. Grog Grog, at which the Flock move not ; but if this Centinal see or hear the Fowler approaching, he cries quickly Bir, Bir, which would seem to import danger, since immediately after all the Ti'ibe take Wing, leaving the Fowler empty on the Rock." . . . . " The Solan Goose comes about the middle of March with a Soufh- West Wind, warm Snow, or Rain, and goes away, according as the Inhabitants determine the time, i.e., the taking 126 THE GANNET away, or leaving its Egg, whether at the First, Second, or Third time he lays."* In another place Martin says : " They preserve the Solan Geese in their Pyramids for the space of a Year, slitting them in the Back, for they have no Salt to keep them with. They have Built above Five hundred Stone Pyramids for their Fowls, Eggs, etc."t It is not surprising that with such a diet, a species of leprosy broke out, from which Martin found two families still suffering. | Martin commits himself to no guesses about the quantities of the birds, but says : " We made particular Enquiry after the Number of Solan Geese consumed by each Family the Year before we came there, [1696] and it amounted to Twenty two thousands six hundred in the whole Island, which they said was less than they ordinarily did, a great many being lost by the badness of the Season, and the great Current into which they must be thrown when they take them, the Rock [of Stack Lii] being of such an extraordinary Height, that they can not reach the Boat."§ I shall have more to say of these figures further on, as doubt has been thrown upon them. I have quoted from Martin's " Voyage " at some length because we have no other account of the Gannet of this date which is so good, and every credit is due to this early observer, in spite of * p. 55. t P- 11-t- + P- 80. § p. 115. ST. KILDA 127 the indifferent opinion held of him by the great lexico- grapher, Samuel Johnson.* 2. The Rev. Kenneth Macaulay, or McAulay, as it was sometimes spelledt who visited St. Kilda in June, 1758 — sixty-one years after Martin was there — has also left us a narrative;!: which can surely only be that of a man who had himself ascended one of the Gannet Stacks ; unless he allowed it to be very much over-edited by Macpherson, who, according to Johnson, put his materials into shape. As I have quoted at length from Martin, one extract from Macaulay will suffice : — " The nests of the solan geese, not to mention those of other fowls, are so close that when one walks between them, the hatching fowls on either side can always take hold of one's cloths ; and they will often sit until they are attacked, rather than expose their eggs to the danger of being destroyed by the sea-gulls ; at the same time, an equal number fly about, and furnish food for their mates that are employed in hatching." 3. In "A Description of St. Kilda," by the Rev. * " No man now writes so ill as ' Martin's Account of the Hebrides ' is written. A man could not write so ill if he should try." (" Life of Samuel Johnson," by James Boswell, IV., p. 97). t Set! Boswell's " Life of Samuel Johnson," II., p. 350 (Croker's edition, 1831). X " A Voyage to and History of St. Kilda," 1704. 128 THE GANNET Alexander Buchan, there is a lengthy account of the Gannet, but it is copied from Martin, so there is no need to quote it. Buchan went to St. Kilda in 1705, but his writings were not published until after their author's death ; as he was minister there for twenty-five years, according to Mr, Seton,* it is perhaps odd that he left so little original matter behind him. 4. The next to mention is the Rev. J. L. Buchanan, who, in his " Travels in the Western Hebrides from 1782 to 1790 " — a volume published from his notes and not until after his death — indulges in a rather imaginative account of the Gannet, which seems to have been furnished him by one of the islanders, possibly the same individual, who, as our author tells us, " was one of the four men that catched four itts, or jiens, being three hundred each, in the whole twelve hundred Solan geese, in one night." Modern History of the Settlement. — As I have never been to St. Kilda I can say nothing of its Gannets from personal observation, but I have endeavoured to read up its literature, which is much more extensive than many would suppose, more especially with reference to birds, and to the fowling which is no longer practised as it was in days of yore. It would take up a good deal of space to enumerate all the books which treat, partially or entirely, of St, Kilda, but * " St. Kilda," by G. Seton, 1878, p. 19. ST. KILDA 129 I cannot refrain from naming two which are much to be recommended : " St. Kilda, Past and Present," by George Seton (1878), and "St. Kilda," by Norman Heathcote (1900), which has an excehent map. The best two treatises on its birds are to be found in the posthumous journals of the Rev. Neil Mackenzie, who was minister on St. Kilda from Arminu LU , ^ Bvrrcra S"" "i^I^^St.Kilda Dana "^ 0 , 'Levertish Ha^kecr Islands ./North '^n U I S T THE ST. KILDA GROUP OF ISLANDS. 1829 to 1843, since pubhshed by his son in " The Annals of Scottish Natural History "* ; and in a modest pamphlet of sixty-eight pages, entitled "St. Kilda and Its Birds," by Joseph Wigles worth (1903), originally delivered as a lecture at Liverpool. * 1905, pp. 75, 141. 130 THE GANNET The St. Kilda Gannetries, though commonly spoken of as if at St. Kilda, are says Dr. Wiglesworth, on the magnificent cliffs on the west and north sides of the much smaller island of Borrera, four miles further north, and on two precipitous stacks which rise out of the water near it, known as Stack an Armine, 592 feet high, and Stack Lii, 533 feet high. For photographs of Borrera, Lii and Armine, and other St. Kildian islands, I owe my thanks to the late Professor BORRERA (AFTER SETON). Newton. I must at the same time not forget to thank another friend — Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown, whose knowledge of the Scottish islands is derived from many years' ac- quaintance with them — for a great deal of information. It is clear that there are more Gannets on these three islands than anywhere else in the world, and that we cannot be wrong in calling St. Kilda the Gannets' metropolis, ST. KTLDA 131 yet on St. Kilda itself none breed, nor on the adjacent island of Soay,* nor, Mr. Harvie-Brown informs me, on Levenish. The annual autumn raid which formerly took place on the young Gannets on Borrera, Lii and Armine must have been a slaughter indeed. Too helpless or too simple to move out of the cragsmen's way the " gugas," as they were called, sat still until a blow on the occiput from a club or a billhook despatched them, and they were then collected and thrown into the sea, where a boat picked up as many as were not washed away by the tide. In Martin's day the number of " gugas " thus collected ran into very big figures, even allowing for some pardonable exaggeration in the tales of the natives. Nowadays these young Gannets have an easy time of it, for they are hardly molested. Even when Dr. Wigles worth was at St. Kilda he found that the regular raids on their great Gannet preserves had, in 1902, already been discontinued by the islanders, of so little use had the birds become. I am not aware that any ornithologist has ever been present at one of these August raids on the St. Kilda " gugas," although nearly every writer mentions them, nor would a scene of devastation and carnage, such as it must have been, be very attractive. * Dr. Wiglesworth tells us that Soay is the Petrel's island par excellence. k2 132 THE GANNET The taking of the adult Gannets was not of quite so much importance in the eyes of the St. Kildians, yet they were freely eaten, partly because, as the Rev. Neil Mackenzie declares,* they were easy to catch asleep, and this especially after a windy day, which they generally spent in gathering grass on the larger islands for their nests. " There is always," says Dr. Joseph Wiglesworth, " a sentinel awake for every group of Gannets, and the success or failure of the expedition hangs entirely on the capture of the sentinel. The men creep up very quietly to the spot, and take the opportunity of seizing the sentinel when he is off his guard, picking at his breast or preening his feathers ; he is seized by the bill and his neck broken by throwing his head back. If the sentinel is disposed of all the other sleeping Gannets which are lying with their heads under their wings can be seized and killed without difficulty, provided no noise is made. As many as two or three score may thus often be taken one after the other, "t If, on the other hand, the sentinel is not caught, the birds hear the men and are soon wide awake and off. It is perhaps more correct to speak of them as hard of hearing, than as slumbering. I have often made experiments with my tame ones when their heads were tightly tucked into a division of the * "Annals Scottish N. H.," 1905, p. 144. •j- "St. Kilda and Its Birds," p. 51. ST. KILDA 135 feathers of the back, which in itself by deadening their hearing would contribute to making them deaf, and the smallness of their closely protected ears would further increase their difficulty in hearing. Another effective plan of taking Gannets and other sea-birds — an old method practised by the St. Kildians in Martin's time,* and still in use among the islanders — is to catch them with a running noose at the end of a long tapering rod. For the loan of a couple of these St. Kildian NOOSE USED BY FOWLERS IN ST. KILDA. snares I am indebted to Mr. J. Steele Elhott, who visited St. Kilda in 1894.t They are about fifteen inches long, including the noose, and appear to be made of horsehair and Gannets' quills deftly plaited together.+ Fewer Gannets and other birds taken than formerly.— * "Voyage to St. Kilda," p. 106. t iSee "Zoologist," 1895, p. 281. t In Norman's " St. Kilda," there is an excellent photograph of a Gannet being canght in this way. 136 THE GANNET Whatever may have been the number of Gannets, young and old, captured by the natives in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that number went on steadily decreas- ing until it had sunk in 1895 to the comparatively small figures of 1,280 young and 1,920 old ones — 3,200, according to Mr. J. Young,* and even their feathers were no longer worth collecting. Writing in 1902 Dr. Wiglesworth says : " Up to about twenty years ago enormous quantities of feathers [of Puffins, Gannets, etc.] were exported as payment for rent, or in exchange for meal and other necessaries, and immense numbers of birds were killed for the sake of their feathers alone The feathers indeed were at that time their chief source of liveUhood."t Their quality, however, varied. The feathers of a Guillemot were not very good. According to the Rev. Neil Mackenzie they were too close and short on the upper part of the bird, and too thin and deficient in curl on the under parts. One Gannet would yield as much feathers as ten Guillemots and of better quahty.J The grease was also boiled down and used as oil to a large extent, but its value had begun to decline too. In that same year — 1902 — the take was 300 Gannets, be- sides, of course, other birds, as I subsequently learnt from Mr. * "Annals Scottish N. H.," 1902, p. 87. t t-C-, p. 20. % t.c. p. 149. ST. KILDA 139 J. T. Mackenzie, who in seeking for a reason for the smallness of the number gathered, adds : " This does not arise from the birds becoming scarce — on the contrary they are very much on the increase — but owing to fall in the price of bird oil, brought about principally by the change from smearing sheep to the modern way of dipping with chemical dips." Dr. Wiglesworth, describing the process of obtaining the oil at a time when it was still in request, says : " [The gannets] were skinned, and the skin, with the adhering fat, was boiled, the oil rising to the surface and being skimmed off ; the fat inside the body of the bird was melted down by itself without boiling. The men used to get one shilling a pint for the oil, but now they can only get 4|d. offered for it,"* and at present they cannot get even that. There was a time when bird oil was in great demand, for in 1875 Mr. J. Sands says the export was nearly six hundred gallons, f but of course only a portion of it was derived from Gannets. Number of Gannets at St. Kilda. — The late Mr. Henry Evans, who, from often yachting round the St. Kilda islands in summer, knew them well, used to say that as many Gannets as frequented the Bass Rock or Ailsa * t.c, p. 50. A St. Kilda " pint " is equal to fixe English i)ints. t " Out of the World, or Life in St. Kilda." 140 THE GANNET Craig might be taken away from the St. Kilda group without the population on its three great Gannet stacks, Borrera, Lii and Armine, being sensibly diminished.* This sounds a bold assertion, but Professor Newton, who accompanied him on five of these expeditions, gives it the sanction of his approval, by adding in the passage just quoted, " I am prepared to believe that there may be more Gannets there [i.e., on the three stacks] than in all the rest of the world beside. "f At first this may seem to some readers an inordinate supposition, but it is confirmed by what others who have been to St. Kilda tell us, and in proof of that it is only necessary to cite the testimony of such observers as John Macgillivray, Harvie-Brown, Elwes, Mackenzie, Kearton, Wigles worth, Dixon, Heathcote, Milner,} and others, who have been to St. Kilda, and written about its Gannets. The latest ornithologist to visit St. Kilda with whom I have had any communication is Mr. 0. G. Pike, who was there in 1908. Writing as to the serried ranks of Gannets which dot every part of Stack Lii, he says * Quoted from " Ootheea Wolleyana " (TI., p. 456). t t.c, p. 457. J W. Macgillivray, " British Birds," V., p. 414 ; J. A. Harvie- Brown, "A Fauna of the Outer Hebrides," 1888, p. 94; H, J. Elwes, "Ibis," 1869, p. oO; Neil Mackenzie, "Annals Scottish N. H.," 1905, p. 145; Richard Kearton, "With Nature and a Camera," 1898, p. 90; J. Wiglesworth, "St. Kilda and its Birds," p. 48 ; C. Dixon, "Ibis,"' 1885, p. 91 ; Heathcote, " St. Kilda," 1900; Milner, " Zoologist," 1848, p. 2058. ST. KILDA 141 the effect on its sloping table-like top is simply marvellous, every place seeming to be occupied by a bird, adding that when he got among them, the Gannets, greatly alarmed and unable to use their wings, scrambled away down the cliff in one confused struggling heap.* The first question which is before us is whether Martin's high figures are reliable, and in considering them it must be borne in mind that in 1696 St. Kilda had twice as many inhabitants as it has now — about 180 — and the harvest of sea-birds was almost their only means of sustenance. Martin tells his readers that he judged 22,600 Gannets to have been consumed by the people in one year — the year 1696.t This total was arrived at by " particular enquiry after the Number of Solan Geese consumed by each Family," a very proper mode of calculation if carried out correctly. And in another place he says that Stack Lii alone furnished five, six, or seven thousand Gannets in a year, according as the weather permitted the men to collect them,:!: and that altogether they had 500 " pyramids," or cairns of stones for their fowls and eggs.§ And in his " Description of the Western Islands of Scotland" (1703), he further says, " the Inhabitants commonly keep yearly above twenty * This reminds one of Audubon's description, wliich lias boon conununly held to be exaggerated {" Orn. Biography," IV^.)- t "Voyage to St. Kilda," p. Ho. | l). 40. § p. 114. 142 THE GANNET thousand young and old [Solan Geese] in their little stone Houses."* Secondly, in 1758 there is the testimony of Kenneth Macaulay that 20,000 Gannets, including the young ones, which no doubt formed the bulk of the spoil, were still taken annually by the islanders. As Macaulay is known to have been to St. Kilda he presumably obtained his information first hand, even though it may have been (as was sub- sequently asserted) Macpherson who wrote most of his book for him when he came back.t If we accept Macaulay's figures as an independent testimony, and not as being merely copied from Martin's " Voyage " by his editor Macpherson, they afford tolerable confirmation of what Martin tells us, being only 2,600 short of his figures. Thirdly, we have also the statement of the then minister on St. Kilda to Mr. James Wilson, made apparently prior to 1827, that 15,000 Gannets had been captured there in a few weeks, + but that is 7,600 less than Martin's estimate of what were taken in a year. At first sight one is inclined to credit Martin's figures, corroborated as they are by Macaulay, and partially by Wilson, but great doubt has been thrown on them by one who is entitled to speak with authority, the Rev. Neil * p. 281. t See p. 127. + "Voyage, round the Coast of Scotland," 1842, II., p. 59. ST. KILDA 143 Mackenzie, minister to the St. Kildians from 1829 to 1843. " Never since I came to the island," writes Mr. Mackenzie, " have they [the natives] killed in any year more than two thousand ' gugas ' [young Gannets], and about the same number of old birds. About eighty of the old birds will yield a stone of feathers (24 lbs.). Last year (1840) they only secured a little more than twenty stones [-^1,600 Gannets]. It takes on an average eighty ' gugas ' when salted to fill a barrel. In general they are very fat, but some years they are quite lean and comparatively worthless.* This is also true of all the birds which frequent the island ; some years they are much leaner than others. From the information which I got from the natives, I do not believe that they ever in any one year killed more than five thousand ' gugas ' [young Gannets], and from two to three thousand old birds. There is no reason why they might not, if they liked, kill in a year five thousand ' gugas ' and four thousand old birds. "f This would be 9,000 Gannets altogether, as against Martin's 22,600, Macaulay's 20,000, and Wilson's 15,000. Wherein lies the truth in these conflicting figures it is hard to say, but I think we may hold that what Mr. Wilson was * In anotlier place he says that Gannets arc fat in ilarcli but very lean in October. t " Annals Scottish N. H.," 1905, p. 145. 144 THE GANNET told l)y the minister of the island in 1827 was not far above it, viz., that at that time when the population was twice as numerous as it is now, the take of Gannets in round numbers approached 15,000. Fourthly, another good naturalist and recent visitor to St. Kilda, who has made an attempt, which is evidently a well-considered one, to arrive at a just calculation of the number of Gannets at the present day, is Dr. Joseph Wiglesworth.* He was at St. Kilda in June, 1902. Speak- ing of Gannets, he says : " This bird breeds in enormous numbers in one locality only of the group, viz.. Stack Lii and Stack an Armin, and the adjoining cliffs on the west and north sides of Boreray. It is not resident, leaving the rocks after the young have flown, and is very rarely seen about in the winter. The largest concentration of these birds relative to area is on Stack Lii, the entire top of which is perfectly white with them, as well as the encircling ledges ; but Stack an Armin is not greatly inferior to its neighbour in this respect, although the birds are definitely less numerous there. On the cliffs of Boreray there are as many birds as on the Stacks, but these being spread over so much greater an area, the effect is not so striking. A few birds [i.e., Gannets] are seen about the Stacks * " St. Kilda and Its Birds," 1903. This little book is the fullest account of the birds since Martin's. ST. KILDA 145 where they breed early in March, and by the end of that month the rocks are fully tenanted. In April they set about making and repairing their nests. They begin to lay spar- ingly in favourable seasons at the end of April, but the eggs are not obtained in any numbers before the first or second week in May. Fully a fortnight will elapse from the time of the first birds laying, before eggs are found in all the nests. On the occasion of my visit, on June 10th [1902], the sloping faces on the top of Stack Ijii were crammed with nests as thick as they could be placed, every available spot between the projecting angles and slabs of rock being thus occupied. Almost every nest contained a single egg, the great majority of which were stained a deep brown colour, and these were all, so far as they were tested, con- siderably incubated, the embryo being formed, but not of large size. ... I endeavoured to form some sort of estimate as to the number of Gannets resident in St. Kilda during the summer by ascertaining the number of eggs taken. On May 14th there were taken from the top of Stack Lii (from the summit only) 1,400 fresh eggs; the great majority of the birds had then laid, but some nests were still unoccupied. Perhaps, then, 1,500 nests might represent the number on the sloping faces on the top of this Stack only. But the men say that on the whole of the rest of this Stack there are more nests than on the summit, and if this be so, the total number of 146 THE GANNET nests on Stack Lii may perhaps be put at 3,500 to 4,000. On Stack an Armin, though the birds are very numerous, they are appreciably less so than on Stack Lii, and the number of nests may perhaps be put at about 3,000. On the cliffs of Boreray the natives consider that there are more nests than on the two Stacks put together, and the number may therefore be approximately reckoned at about 8,000, Doubling the number of nests to get the number of birds, and allowing for a fair sprinkling of non-breeding birds, of which the natives say there are a good many, we get a total of some 30,000 birds. This estimate is much less than that given by some writers, and it of course does not pretend to be more than a rough calculation. It probably errs on the side of deficiency, but at the same time it has to be borne in mind that 1,000 birds of the size of a Gannet make a big show, and a mere cursory view of their numbers would probably lead to an over estimation." The above is what is offered to us by Dr. Wigles worth as the result of his observations, and we are not likely to come by a better estimate. Moreover, Dr. Wiglesworth's figures are nearly sufficient to justify Martin's figures. Yet Martin's figures, and Macaulay's also, do in fact necessitate a considerably higher Gannet population than the 30,000 suggested by Dr. Wiglesworth, because we may be posi- ST. KILDA. 147 tive that the islanders of the seventeenth century could not have caught all the young Gannets there were, or more, let us say, than a tenth part of the old ones. Such a number as Martin's 22,600 requires therefore that there must have been about 45,000 Gannets altogether, if not more, inhabiting the St. Kilda islands in 1697. Now there is no reason to think there are less at present tlian there were in the seventeenth century. The contrary is more probable, at least since 1900, when the young ones ceased to be worth collecting. Accordingly there must have been some unintentional exaggeration on Martin's part, though in most things he was an accurate observer and recorder. But here he must have been misled by the tales of the natives. Whilst admitting it was so, I think we may at any rate believe in from 12,000 to 15,000 Gannets having been gathered, which latter is the figure Wilson gives us. Accepting as the status of this Gannetry now, the figures put forward by Dr. Wigles worth, though I think they must be under the mark, let us reckon that there are nov/ at least 30,000 Gannets in the St. Kilda islands ; of which, following the proportions indicated by him, and acquiesced in by the late Professor Newton, 16,000 may be assigned to the island of Borrera, 8,000 to Stack Lii, and about 6,000 to Armine. PiLffins and other Birds .—W\t\\ regard to the other species L 'J 148 THE GANNET of sea-fowl which inhabit 8t. Kilda, the Guillemot, Razorbill and Fulmar Petrel are excessively numerous. The Rev. Neil Mackenzie had seen thirty-one baskets of Guillemots' eggs, each containing four hundred, — which makes 12,400, — col- lected in two gatherings on the little island of Stack Biorrach.* As for the Puffins at St. Kilda, Dr. Wiglesworth declares that they are simply incalculably numerous, far above any other species of bird which inhabits the island, a statement which is in every way confirmed by Mr. Mackenzie, f who adds that the number of Puffins and their eggs which used to be taken during a season, — men, women, boys, girls, and dogs all pursuing them, — was incredible. But Puffins swarm in many places besides St. Kilda, and it may well be that numerically they are the dominant species of European bird.t Large Quantities of Fish. — I have already alluded to the quantity of fish found near Ailsa Craig (p. 103), and I believe it is a fact that herrings and other fish are equally abundant near St. Kilda, which makes it a favourite fishing ground with the trawlers. Indeed, Norman Heathcote speaks of a trawler said to have cleared £10,000§ in the vicinity of * Annals Scottish N. H. 1905, p. 149. t t.c, p. 151. J Yet the Puffin only lays one egg. No doubt this superabundance is partly accounted for by the fact that the annual slaughter of them for eating, whicli formerly took place, has nearly ceased. § -'St. Kilda." p. 208. ST. KILDA 149 these islands, as the result of a very successful season's fishing. On this subject Mr. John Paterson has favoured me with a communication from Mr. Mac Iver, of Stornoway, who, being a very large herring-merchant, is an authority on such matters, and whose experience is that " there are any number of trawlers working off those grounds," i.e., the west Hebridean coast, and vicinity of St. Kilda and the Flannan Islands. In his opinion "it is splendid ground for trawlers, and they almost every day of the year frequent the place," landing their fish for the most part at Aberdeen, Hull, and Grimsby, and a few at Castlebay. The presence of a plenitude of fish is further confirmed by inquiries made of the Fishery Board (Edinburgh), where, by the courtesy of the secretary, I have been enabled to elicite a few particulars as to tlie quantity of herrings taken by Scotch boats only, in St. Kildian waters, and to the west of the Hebrides : — In 1904 about 800,000 herrings were brought to port. ., 1905 „ 3,500,000 .. 1906 ,, 1,800,000 „ 1907 „ 100,000 Haddocks are also very abundant, and the l)()ats bring in large quantities, as well as many other fish. Now it is undeniable that all this abundance of fish is a proof beyond gainsay that fish and sea-birds can exist and 150 THE GANNET niultii)ly together in the same area. Here is a case in which herrings, haddocks, pollack, saithe, etc., go on replenishing their numbers year after year, in spite of the presence of one of the largest — if not the very largest — armies of sea- birds existing in the northern hemisphere. The inference, it is plain, can only be that the fecundity of sea-fish, which is under favourable circumstances something altogether incredible, has shown itself for centuries to be more than equal to the enormous demands made upon it by the legions of birds at St. Kilda. Speculations may not be worth much, but I venture to think that if half the Gannets inhabiting the British Isles were destroyed, and half the Shags and Puffins, it would not make any appreci- able difference in the amount of fish left for human beings ! Sulisgeir. Its Early History. — We are not altogether ignorant of the early history of this lonely rock, thanks to Dean Monro,* who has left us his description of so many Scottish islands, including Sulisgeir, which he calls Suilskeray, which is its English equivalent. Sgeir, writes Professor Newton, * Donald Monro, High Dean of The Isles ; he travelled among them in 1549, but his account of them was not made pul)lic until 1774. Sulisgeir is the last on his List, No. 209. His description of it has been made use of in '.' Geographise Blavianse volumen sextum," 1662; for a transcript of the passage I am indebted to Mr. H. S. Gladstone, SULISGEIR 151 is "'merely the Gaelic adaptation of the old Norsk Sker= Skerry — a small island which may or may not have pre- cipitous cliffs : Sgeir and Skerry are actually the same word — one being the Gaelic, the other the English form. The modern Norwegian is Skier or Skicer." Dean Monro Siilisgeir or North Barn ./\, Noilh Rona 6 The Slack (Gnnncts) Orkney m Q- hr\'f- ^\j v*^/- ■■X s/gj lyn E R L A X I) POSITION OF SULISGEIR AND THE STACK. does not mention Gannets by name as being on this isUmd, though what he says about " wylde fouhs " may be taken as applying to them. He says : " This ile is full of wylde fouHs, and quhen fouhs hes ther birdes [i.e., young ones] men out of the parochin of Nesse in Lewis use to sail ther. and to stay ther seven or aught dayes. and to fetch hanic 152 THE GANNET with them their brith [boat] full of dray [i.e., dried] wild foulis, with wyld foulis fedders." This island of Sulisgeir, which is only half a mile in length, has been also known by the names of North Barra and Suliskerry, but Mr. Harvie-Brown tells me that the latter designation is more fitly applied to the true Sule-Skerry (" Stack and Skerry "), lying much nearer to the Orkneys, and to be next described. So that there has been a certain amount of confusion which Mr. Harvie-Brown, who has visited all these islands, has been instrumental in clearing up. We only possess two accounts of the ornithology of Sulisgeir, firstly that by Mr. John Swinburne,* and secondly that by Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown, t but these authors are excellent naturalists and tell a great deal which is of value about this island rock. Mr. John Swinburne was on Sulisgeir in June, 1883, and Mr. Harvie-Brown was there in June, 1887 ; the latter states that it is chiefly the southern and eastern faces of the island which are tenanted by Gannets, which there occupy the rocks and ledges by thousands. " Nearer the cliff," says Mr. Harvie-Brown, whose visit was made shortly after a wholesale killing by the men of Ness had taken place, " and between the looser fragments and the edge, * Royal Physical Soc. Edinburgh, VIII., p. 51 (1883-5). t "A Vertebrate Fauna of the Outer Hebrides," 1888, p. Hi. SULISGEIR 153 the rocks' are white with, and deep in, Gannets' excrement, and the big clumsy nests, some few with fresh clean, many more with rotten or hard-set eggs, or young in various stages, squelch beneath the tread almost ankle-deep. It is easy to clamber, and even to run here, at least in dry weather, because the foothold is good. The stench was overpower- ing, but what must it be in wet weather would beggar description. The nests were masses of putrid seaweed. Sulisgeir is indeed a desolate isle. To the -left of the landing-place a big spur runs out, populated all over as above described. A number of rudely constructed stone huts, tolerably comfortable and wind-proof — about a dozen in all — have been erected for refuge houses by the Ness men, who come over to take the eggs and birds. Their visit this season must have been recently paid, as close round the huts lay innumerable Gannets' heads ; . . . . The Leac rock or flat-headed spur of the southern gable-end of Sulisgeir is covered with Gannets, as is the whole east face and the somewhat rounded off, or terraced, tops of the solid cliff, and certain spots also of the western face At every second Gannet's nest lay a herring or two fished up from the deep." Sulisgeir's wild and rugged aspect is well shown in the photographs taken for Mr. Harvie-Brown by Mr. ^^^ Xorrie, one of which I have Mr. Harvie-Brown's permission to make 154 THE GANNET use of. It will be observed that nearly all the Gannets which are on their nests are facing the same way, and that the uncovered nests are very substantial, and of considerable diameter. Number of Gannets on Sidiscjeir. — As regards its Gannet population Mr. Harvie-Brown was of opinion that when he was there in 1887, Sulisgeir surpassed both the Bass Rock and Ailsa Craig in numbers [i.e., lii.). Mr. Harvie-Brown tells us that in 1884 two boats' crews from Ness took 800, 1,000 and 1,000 young Gannets in three consecutive days = 2,800 in all, and Mr. Swinburne says as many as 3,000 have been taken in a single season {i.e., p. 65). This number seems to have been maintained, and as recently as 1898 the number taken according to the harbour-master of Ness, Mr. John Macleod, was still about 2,500. This is at least 700 more young Gannets than have ever been taken on the Bass Rock, but in making a comparison it must be said that the nests on Sulisgeir are more accessible — judging from the accounts and Mr. Norrie's photographs — than on the Bass. Now, 2,800 young Gannets would have had 5,600 parents, and if we allow 2,400 more for Gannets with inaccessible nests, which Professor Newton, who had these figures before him, thought was ample, it gives a Gannet settlement of 8,000. This is putting it higher than the Bass Rock, or Ailsa Craig, and at that I think I am justified in reckoning it. SULE-SKERRY 157 The Stack of "Stack cmd Skerry y'" or Sule-Skerry. Lying nearly forty miles to the west of the Orkney Islands, and some thirty miles north of Sutherlandshirc, are two small island rocks, known collectively to mariners as Stack and Skerry, but of which the larger is, Mr. Eagle Clarke tells me, termed Sule-Skerry in the Ordnance Gazetteer, and the other is correctly its " Stack." The distance between them is as much as four miles, and the Stack is believed to cover about six acres. 1. Donald Monro does not mention the Stack of Sule- Skerry in his list of islands, and the first allusion to it, which is of a somewhat vague nature, is from Sir Robert Sibbakl, who, in his " History of Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross " (1710), which contains a very good account of the Gannet, speaks of there being these birds " in a desert Isle belonging to Orkney." This can hardly mean anything but the Stack of Sule-Skerry. 2. The next mention of the Stack which we come across is in the " British Zoology," where, among the Gannets' breeding places Pennant names briefly " the stack of Souliskerry near the Orkneys."* That he had the Stack and not Sulisgeir, of which he makes no mention, in his * •' Britisii Zool.," 4th ed.. 177(i; II.. p. t)14. 158 THE GANNRT mind is proved by his subsequently giving ten leagues as its distance from Hoy.* 3. The next to quote is the Rev. George Low, who says in his "Fauna Orcadensis "t (1813): ''The Solan Goose breeds in none of the Orkney Isles, as far as I can learn. .... The nearest land to Orkney where the Solan Goose breeds is a rock called the Stack of Soliskerry, where many hundreds breed every year, as the seals do on the Skerry. Some time ago a ship went from this place thither, 'and returned with a great quantity of young Solans, the feathers of which were good, as they were not near so oily as those of the older sea-fowl ; the birds were eaten, but were very wild and fishy-tasted, with a strong smell." Mr. Harvie-Brown considers the Stack to be " certainly one of the most inaccessible of all our Scottish islets, the difficulty of landing lying not only in its open and exposed situation, but in the fierce rdst, or rush, of tideway which flows round its base." Mr. Harvie-Brown has tried to land on this dangerous and unapproachable Stack three times, but in vain, but he has sailed very near it. He heard on good authority that Joseph Dunn, who was formerly a * i.e., thirty miles, see the " Caledonian Zoolofiy," prefixed to Lightfoot's "Flora Scotica," 1777, p. 46. f p. 148; Low's "Fauna" was published eighteen years after its author's death by Dr. W. E. Leach, who says the MS. was revised by Pennant; accordingly it may have been from that source that the latter's information was derived. SULE-SKERRY 159 bird-dealer at Stromness, had succeeded in landing on it several times, but to do so the calmest weather is necessary. I am indebted to Mr. Dick Peddie for a photograph of the Stack, done in July, 1908, and also to Mr. John Pedder, IPhulnifrnphcd by Vick /ViUiii-, Jalij, \i)UH. THE STACK. for enlarging a sketch of Mr. Harvic-Brown's which he made from his yacht in 1887 when approaching the Stack from S.S.E., at the distance of about a mile. Mr. Harvie-Brown when he was there, noticed that " the glasses revealed a very considerable proportion of dark 160 THE GANNET birds amongst the white ones ; and, on the wing, immature birds of the first, second, and third year were clearly distinguished, and almost constantly in sight."* This was at the beginning of July, 1887, and a similar preponderance of young ones was remarked by Professor Newton, and Mr. H. Evans, when they were at the Stack but did not land on June 28th, 1890. At sucli a date young Gannets of the year would hardly be expected to be half-grown, 3^et it may have been a very early season, but any strong enough to be on the wing were probably birds of the pre- ceding year. Number of Gannets on the Stack. — With regard to the Gannet population on the Stack I may first quote a letter from Mr. N. A. Mcintosh, a former principal of the lighthouse on Sule-Skerry, who says in reply to some queries : " I have been asking the captain of the tender which attends our light- house as to the probable number [of Gannets], as he had the opportunity of viewing them often on the wing, having frequently passed quite close and fired rockets to rouse them. He tells me the estimate could safely be put down at from 8,000 to 10,000." This may be a more or less accurate guess, but as has been shown before, guesses are more apt to be over the mark than below it. Mr. Mcintosh also says : "For * " A Fauna of the Orkney Islands," by Harvie-Brovvn and Buckley, p. 160. SULE-SKERRY 163 a number of years back a boat has come from the island of Lewis to take as many of the young birds as they can reach.* These are generally taken in August, and the number never exceeds 1,000, for the reason that only a small portion of the rock is accessible." The whole extent of the Stack, he thinks, is as much as six acres, reckoning down to the water- line. Mr. Harvie-Brown, while cautiously abstaining from committing himself to an estimate, says : " The entire summit .... is densely populated by Gannets ; and on the north-west side they are equally numerous upon certain broad shelves The isolated portions at the ends also are covered with the birds [Gannets] to even lower elevations above the sea, but on the west side, where it is more precipitous and a smoother rock, there is very little bird-life." Another witness, the late Mr. James Tomison, who was seven years at the lighthouse on Sule-Skerry, and from whom Mr. Eagle Clarke obtained an account of its birds, t says, when speaking of the Stack, that the rock is simply covered to its summit with Gannets, and thousands continually on the wing going to and returning from fishing. They have never nested on Sule-Skerry, but every year * In 1903 or 1904 the boat from Ness was wind-bound on the coast of Sutherlandshire, and was several weeks in getting bank to Lewis, and Mr. Mcintosh was told that the men were not going to the Stack any more^ having had enough of it ! t See " Annals Scottish N.H.," 1904, p. 97. M 2 164 THE GANNET he says a few settle on the Skerry, probably during fogs, and being unable to rise from the ground generally die there. So little that is definite is known at present about this settlement of Gannets, and the numbers which compose it, that I am afraid of rating it higher than 5,000, but its strength must be more than that if 1,000 young ones can be gathered from only a small portion of the Stack.* * In another chapter I propose citing a number of statistics of Gannets seen, for the most part in bands, passing the Butt of Lewis, Cape Wrath, aud Pentland Skerries ; these statistics were all kept for Mr. Harvie-Brown by lighthouse keepers, who have exceptional opportunities for watching. CHAPTER VI. THE BASS ROCK. The Bass Rock — History of its Gannets from the earhest times — As bequeathed to us by historians and travellers — Beginning witli " The Scotichronicon," in 1447 — Quotations from authors and criticisms on their credibility. Early History of Bass Gannets. — It will be readily ad- mitted that it is worth while reciting the strange old stories, — bound up as they are with many facts and some legends, — which travellers and historians of the Middle Ages have bequeathed to us about the Bass Rock and its remarkable birds ; and as they can hardly be curtailed without spoiling their quaintness, it is necessary to give them in some detail. I shall, therefore, make no scruple in occupying this chapter with some long extracts, and it will be found that they will well repay the trouble of perusing with some care and attention. A certain amount of repetition must, therefore, be pardoned in this chapter, yet to avoid this as much as possible I have resolved, except in a few cases, not to give the Latin originals, but only a careful translation of them. There is much which might here be dwelt upon with great advantage, besides the 168 THE GANNET natural history of the Bass, but this is hardly the place in which to enlarge on the former strength and importance of the Rock, as a fortress and a prison, grim and curious EDINBURGH enough as is this aspect of its history. All that strange recital has been admirably told, with many details, in the Rev. Thomas M'Crie's " The Bass Rock : Its Civil and THE BASS ROCK 169 Ecclesiastical History" (1847), a volume which, besides civil matters, contains a valuable contribution to the history of the Gannet from the pen of Professor Fleming.* To this work I would refer the reader for a great deal of erudite information of the highest value. Among the documents brought to light by Mr. M'Crie, not Stone Di/kefffsy..../... { A ^q- ^ The Bms &■ ; "\ ^/^ /(H (NoHh Berwick Pnj West Cove m-..t _/>> //i/ (Rums of) ^^IT^K?*/^ Crane SastiOTlr^*^^M^fl«< Landing West Landing^^^ THE BASS ROCK (ORDNANCE SURVEY). the least interesting is a Charter of 1316, granting the Bass Rock to Robert Lauder. Unfortunately this relic of an- tiquity, in which the Bishop of St. Andrews confers upon the said Lauder " all Uberties, commodities, and easements " appertaining to the Bass, makes no mention of the Solan Geese ; nor have we a single work which describes, or even refers to Bass Gannets earlier than Fordun's * Anotlier useful book is " The Bass Rock, and its Storj'," by L. A. Barb6, 1904. 170 THE GANNET " Scotichromcon,"* which is long subsequent to our first knowledge of the Lundy Gannetry. In 1493 the name of another Robert Lauder again comes before us in connection with Bass Gannets, as will be mentioned presently under that date, and in 1675 the journal of a Sir John Lauder contains this entry — " For a Solan Goose 29 pence," but the Sir John Lauder of that day did not own the Bass. Before entering on the history of the Bass Gannets, it is due to the memory of the late Professor Newton to acknowledge his great assistance in searching for, translating, and explaining many of the passages in this chapter. In 1865 he had already greatly interested himself in an inquiry of the same nature, undertaken by Professor Cunningham {see " Ibis," 1866, p. 1), to whom, — about the Bass Rock especially, — he must have given no small assistance. To the result of Professor Cunningham's diligent labours I have already referred, and again gladly acknowledge the use which they have been to me, and I vnsli to thank Mr. J. Paterson, Mr. A. H. Evans, Mr. William Evans and Mr. Southwell for their help also. Fifteenth Century. — 1. There is no earlier mention to be found of Gannets on the Bass Rock than that con- tained in " The Scotichronicon," a work ascribed to John de * Or Scoticlironicum. THE BASS ROCK 171 Fordun, a priest of Aberdeen. The passage in question, which has been already brought to the notice of ornithologists by Professor Cunningham,* is from the Cupar Codex, now in the Advocates' Library, and is a note alluding to three islands in the Firth of Forth, viz., the Bass, Fotherayt and May, and runs thus : " Hae fusius traduntur in codice Cuprensi, lib. I. cap. 29, his verbis : ' Insula de Bass, ubi solendse nidificant in magna copia : cujus protector exstat Sanctus Baldredus,t SanctiKentigerniolimsuffraganus ; . . .' " This passage is not in the text of " The Scotichronicon," but in a footnote. § The late Dr. W. F. Skene considered that the Cupar Codex was written about 1447, by Walter Bower, abbot of a monastery on Inchcolm, who is known to have been the continuator of Fordun's famous work; 1447, there- fore, must be taken as the approximate date of the record, 2. The next mention of Bass Gannets arises from threatened litigation in a disputed ownership. This is to be found in a Commission from Pope Alexander VI. to investigate a claim, bearing date May 10th, 1493, The * " Ibis," 186G, p. 1. t By Fotheray, Mr. William Evans thinks the little island of Fidra was intended, but I did not see any remains of a monastery when visiting it. X What are called the ruins of St. Baldred's chapel probably mark the spot where the hermit's cell stood in 60G. § But the footnote is not to be met with in all editions ; it is here quoted from Godall's edition, 1759. Liber I,, cap. VI., note. II See "Historians of Scotland" (Edinburgh), 1871, L, p. xi., preface. 172 THE GANNET claim in question is made by the Prioress of North Berwick, the ruins of whose priory are still to be seen there, against Robert Lauder, of the Bass, for certain barrels of grease. Probably this was an annual payment — something in the nature of tithe, and may have been the origin of the twelve Solan Geese which the minister of North Berwick is to this day, if he choose, entitled to receive as vicar of the Bass, The original of this document, which has been already brought to the notice of naturalists in the " History of the Berwickshire Naturahsts' Club " (VII., p. 88), and again in " The Birds of Berwickshire,"* is stated by Dr. John Stuart to be preserved in the General Register House a Edinburgh. The actual words, I am informed by Mr. J. Anderson, are, " pinguedinis auium silvestrum." As already set forth, it was 177 years before this, viz., in 1316 that the Bass Rock was granted to the Landers. f To go to the length of invoking the aid of the Pope shows the value which Gannets' grease had in Henry VIII. 's time, a value to which thirty-three years later Hector Boece bears testimony in " The Cosmographe," to be cited immediately. Sixteenth Century. — 3. The first really descriptive story * By George Muirhead, II., p. 37. t But it was not until some time subsequently that they approisriately assumed a Solan Goose for their crest. See M'Crie's History of the Bass; the Bass was sold by the Lauders in 1621. THE BASS ROCK 173 of the Bass Gannets, which has been preserved to us, is to be found in Major's " History of Great Britain." He was born in 1469 at Gleghornie, now spelled Glegharnie — a small hamlet, situated a few miles only from the Bass Rock. This work is entitled : — " Historia Majoris Britannise," per Joannem Majorem, 1521.* " Prope Glegornum in Oceano ad duas leucas est rupes Bassensis, in qua est arx inexpugnabilis circa quam magnarum anatum (quas Sollendas vocant) de piscibus viventium est mira multitudo, quae cum anatibus ferinis communibus aut domesticis non sunt eadem in specie specialissima : sed quia eis in colore & figura persimiles sunt, nomine communi anatum congaudent, sed discriminis causa sollendae vocantur. Hae anates, aut hi anseres, in vere turmatim a meridie ad rupem de Bas quotannis veniunt, & rupem duobus vel tribus diebus circumvolitant, quo in tempore rupem inhabitantes nullum tumultum faciunt : tunc nidificare incipiunt, & tota sestate manent, & piscibus vivunt, & incolse rupis piscibus ab illis captis pascuntur. Ascendunt namque illarum nidos, & ad libitum pisces capiunt. In capiendis f)iscibus mirabilis est hujus avis industria. In fundo maris lynceis oculis piscem contempla- tur, contra quem se prsecipitat, sicut contra ardeam Nisus, quern protinus ore & ungulis extrahit : et si a rupe aliquo alio inter vallo distet, alio pisce meliore viso priorem elabi permittit, quatinus posterius visum capiat ; & sic semper recentissimos habent pisces in tota sestate in rupe. * Editio nova, Edinburgh, pp. 22-23, by John Major (or Mair, cf. " Diet. Nat. Biography," XXXV., p. 386), MDCCXL. In the first edition there are many contractions. Mr. J. E. Harting seems to hav'e been the first to draw attention to tliis passage (" Handbook of British Birds," new edition, p. 287 IV Bonaicnticrc " V Bird RjDclts \'\ Qcutrvet " v2 ■292 THE GANNET the only non-European haunts of Sula hassana, have on that account an especial interest, and also because of their geographical position, for they are much more southerly than any of the Gannet stations of Europe. In the matter of temperature, however, there is, I believe, not a great deal of difference. The earliest record of the Canadian Gannets known to naturalists, is contained in the log of an adventurous French navigator, the famous Jacques Cartier, who in 1534 sailed from France for the New World. On the 10th of May this intrepid sailor sighted the coast of Newfoundland, which had been discovered some thirty-seven years before by Cabot, and on the 21st he reached an island which could have been none other than Funk Island. Thanks to the late Professor Newton, I have been able to make use of Cartier's original narrative, which is in Breton French, Cartier having been a native of Brittany. *t * Cartier's portrait still hangs in the Town Hall of St. Malo. f " The first relation of Jacques Cartier " a3 contained in " The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traflfiques and Discoveries of the English Nation," by Richard Hakluyt (1589). Hakluyt, in Professor Newton's opinion, translated from the version by Ramusio, who was the first to publish any account of Cartier's first voyage, which he did at Venice in!^ 1565. What is called, adds Professor Newton, the " Relation origmale," supposed to be in Cartier's own words, if not handwriting, was published at Paris in 1867, having been discovered shortly before. A good modern edition of Hakluyt's Voyages was brought out by Maclehose and Sons, publishers to Glasgow University, in 1904, which I have used. GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 293 " L'isle des Ouaiseaulx [Oiseaux].* " II y en avoit d'aultre plus grans, qui sont blans, qui se mettent a part des aultres en vne partie de l'isle. qui sont fort mauuaiz a assallir ; car ilz mordent comme ehiens et sont nommez Margaulx,'''' etc. Translation after Hakluyt. "Upon the 21 of May [1534] ... we came to the Island of Birds, which was environed about with a banke of ice, but broken and crackt : notwithstanding the sayd banke, our two boats went thither to take in some birds, whereof there is such plenty, that unlesse a man did see them, he would thinke it an incredible thing : for albeit the Island (which containeth about a league in circuit) be so full of them, that they seeme to have bene brought thither, and sowed for the nonce, yet are there an hundred f olde as many hovering about it as within ; some of the which are as big as jayes, black and white, with beaks like unto crowes : they lie always upon the sea ; they cannot flie very high, because their wings are so Uttle, and no bigger than halfe ones hand, yet do they flie as swiftly as any birds of the aire levell to the water ; they are also exceeding fat ; we named them Aporath.-f . . . * I have not quoted the whole passage in the French. I Probably the Razorbill {Alca torda, L.). 294 THE GANNET " ... There are other larger birds, which are white, which hve apart from the others in one part of the island, which are very bad to attack, for they bite like dogs, and are named Margaulx.^^* No more of the passage is about Gannets, but the journal goes on to relate how Cartier's sailors found a bear " great as any cow, and as white as any swan, who in their presence lept into the sea," but eventually they "by main strength tooke her, whose flesh was as good to be eaten as the flesh of a calfe of two yeres olde." ! No doubt Mr. F. Lucas is right in thinking that this Island of Birds must have been Funk Island, Newfoundland,! for the context seems to preclude its being Bonaventure, in confirmation of which it may be remarked that the map shows a promontory marked " Gannet-Head " on the south point of Funk Island 4 From Funk Island to Bird Rocks would be about four hundred miles. If one may credit the testimony of the fishermen, adds Mr. Lucas, some Gannets were breeding on Funk Island so recently as about 1857, but there are none now. It evidently was not a large settlement in 1534. * " Margot " of which " Margaulx " (in the Ramusio edition it reads " Margaux ") is the old plural, is still a fisherman's name for the Gannet on the north coast of France ; in the neighbourhood of Boulogne it is seldom that any other appellation is applied to the Gannet. See p. 18. t " The Auk," 1888, p. 133. X See " Report Nat. Mus., 1887-8," PI. LXXI. GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 295 The second passage in Cartier's entertaining journal, dated about a month later, runs as follows : — " Le landemain, XX V*^ jour . . . fymes courrir au Surouaist quinze heues, et vynmes trouver trois isles, dont y en auoit deux petittes et acorez comme murailles, tellement que possible n'est de monter dessurs. Entre lesquelles y a vng petit forillon ; Icelles isles aussi plaines de ouaiseaux que vng pre de herbe, qui heirent au dedans d 'icelles isles, dont la plus grande estoit plaine de Margaulx qui sont blancs et plus grans que ouays ; Et en 1 'autre y en auoit paroillement en vne quantite d'elle, et en I'autre plaine de Godez, et au bas y auoit paroillement desdits Godez et des grans Apponatz qui sont paroilz de ceulx de I'isle dont est cy dauant faiet mencion. Nous descendisme au bas de la plus petitte et tuames de Godez et de Apponatz plus de mille ; et en prinmes en noz barques ce que nous en voullumes." Translation after Hakluyt. " The 25 of the moneth [June 1534] . . . wee went south- east, about 15 leagues, and came to three Hands, two of which are as steepe and upright as any wall, so that it was not possible to climbe them : and betweene them there is a little rocke. These Hands were as full of birds, as any field or medow is of grasse, which there do make their nestes : and in the greatest of them, there was a great and infinite 296 THE GANNET number of those that wee caL Margaulx, that are white, and bigger than any geese, which [i.e., the islands] were seuered in one part. In the other were onely Godetz [Guillemots and Razorbills] and great Apponatz [the Great Auk],* like to those of that Hand that we aboue haue mentioned : we went downe to the lowest part of the least Hand, where we killed aboue a thousand of those Godetz, and Apponatz. We put into our boates so many of them as we pleased, for in lesse than one houre we might have filled thirtie such boats of them : we named them the Hands of Margaulx." The identity of these three islands with what are now known as the Bird Rocks is sufficiently established ; their position, about the centre of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is shown on the map, and they are still the home of the Gannet, as they were in Cartier's time. His expressive phrase " plaine de Margaulx " shows that he found plenty of them when he was there. It has been suggested by Mr. F. M. Chapman that a search among the narratives of other early voyagers might yield something of interest, but the only thing that I have come across about Gannets is that among the birds of Newfoundland, named by Sir Humfrey Gilbert, the step-brother of Ralegh, who made * See Miss F. P. Hardy [Mrs. Eokstorm] on the identification of these birds' names, ' The Auk," 1888, p. 382. GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 29? a voyage to those regions in 1583,* we find enumerated "A great white foule called of some a Gaunt " — doubtless the Gannet, but there is nothing about their nesting. Modern History. The Bird Rocks. — Coming now to modern times, the celebrated Bird Rocks are the first settlement to be considered. Mr. F. M. Chapman, in a very interesting narrative of his visit there, terms the Great Bird Rock, which is 105 feet high, and which Cartier called the Island of Margaulx, " an ideal refuge for sea-fowl." In spite of the great diminution which history shows to have taken place in its feathered population, it is difficult, observes Mr. Chapman, for a casual observer to believe that it could ever have been more densely inhabited than it is now.f That is with the exception of the upper surface, where the hghthouse buildings are, and where no Gannets breed any longer. Of recent years Bird Rock has been visited by several good observers, one of whom, Mr. H. K. Job, author of " Wild Wings," was there in June, 1904, and it is satisfactory to learn that owing to a partial prohibition of shooting, most of the birds showed a decided increase since his previous visit to Bird Rock in 1900 — an increase also noticed by Mr. A. C. Bent. It is to be hoped that for both the Canadian breeding-places — Bird Rock and Bonaventure — we may * See " Hakluj't," iii., p. 195, or in ]\Iaclehose's edition, viii., p. 59. t " Bird Studies with a Camera " (1900), jjp. 152, 161. 298 THE GANNET look forward to still further prosperity, now that the atten- tion of the High Commissioner of Canada has been drawn oo. ' ' ..■■ ^••-, v5 «.■ to " " V, 2?^ f22> ~4 '^^" "\ -''y\ IS 9 ^ U \ r 24 25 25 s / *'^i^y^tx "^X, •' . ■« ^ •' .. ?? ■* '''" fto/i ■"'■ J.1 25 " ' e ■^ 20 ■ -14 1 e ^ 9 Z3 'J 75 5, -• .„.'" 13 \"'' , « ' iJ ''•■=• 9^9 Jjt Jtf "^'v 2S ^. '" \ 20 S i2 . -'* \ n iC- id. \ ■«7 \ .9 23 2StAt 26 24 27 26 A" \ w , 26 nl 1 ^ SO • iO ^i 27 sti 1 w JJ 26 " 26 * n «» ^7 20 -# 1 ^ a f, „ ion '" IS 22 ^^<^ /' --^.s. 20 lO I... » ; f /' ±. _^1 [J u ! s.sh to them. In 1881 Mr. Brewster complained much of the negligence of the Government in the matter, and with reason.* * Miss L. Gardiner, Secretary to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, learns on enquiry that up to October, 1909, there had been no general order of protection issued for the Magdalen Islands, of which Bird Rock forms a part, other than for game or wild duck, except that Loons and Gulls have a close time from March 1st to September 1st. GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 299 From the time of Cartier to Nuttall's " Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada " (1832- 1834), there does not appear to be any mention of these J\M. Chapma,., Phot. BIRD ROCK FROM S.W. Gannets on Bird Rocks, and Nuttall's information was derived from Audubon.* The cruise of this great naturalist- painter to the Bird Rocks in June, 1833, is an historic event * Nuttall, t. c, ii., p. 498. Professor Verrill has seen an earlier account, but cannot recall where. 300 THE GANNET in ornithology. Although he did not himself actually land upon them, he was at any rate the first naturalist to gaze on the great bird hive, and see the seven species of sea-birds which bred there. The freshness which memoranda written on the spot always possess makes his Labrador journal* — which was not printed until long after his death, and in which all particulars of the expedition in the schooner " Ripley " are narrated — even better reading than the account in his subsequently published " Ornithological Biography. "t Another good account of Bird Rocks, and their Gannets and other sea-fowl, is that by Dr. Henry Bryant, who is entitled to the credit of being the first naturalist to land upon them. J His visit was paid in 1860, twenty-seven years after Audubon's, and he, amazed at the number of the Gannets, thought that there might be 150,000 of them, which was probably reckoning far too many. He writes : " The northerly or highest half of the summit of Gannet Rock, and all the ledges on its sides of sufficient width, the whole upper part of the pillar-hke portion of the Little Bird, and the greater part of the remaining portion of this * " Audubon, and his Jom-nals," by Maria R. Audubon and Elliott Coues (1898). t Vol. IV., p. 222. + See " Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.," VIIT., p. 65. GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 301 rock, were covered with the nests of the Gannet at the time of my visit. On the ledges the nests were arranged in single lines nearly or quite touching one another ; on the summit, at regular distances one from the other of about three feet. Those on the ledges were built entirely of sea-weed and other floating substances ; on the summit of the rock they were raised on cones, formed of earth or small stones, about ten inches in height, and eighteen in diameter, when first constructed, presenting at a short distance, the appearance of a well hilled potato field. I saw no nests built of Zostera, or grass, or sods ; the materials were almost entirely Fuci, though anything available was probably used ; in one case the whole nest was composed of straw, and in another the greater part of Manilla rope-yarn." In 1861 Bird Rock was visited by Professor Verrill. We learn that in 1869 a lighthouse was erected on the flat summit of the large Bird Rock, and that the birds decreased in consequence. This was especially so on the table top of the rock, where the Gannets, which Bryant had estimated at 100,000 in 1860, soon began to disappear. "Hence," writes Mr. Chapman, "when Mr. C. J. Maynard visited the Rock in 1872, he found that the colony of Gannets on its summit contained only five thousand birds, which, nine years later, Mr. WiUiam Brewster reports had 302 THE GANNET decreased to fifty pairs."* In 1887 Mr. F. A. Lucas, who visited the Bird Rocks in July of that year, tells us that no Gannets then bred on the Little Bird Rock, and only 150 on the Pillar Rock adjoining it, but that according to the light - [/•'. M. Chai-imnn, Phot. GANNETS ON BIRD ROCK. house keeper, there were about 10,000 on Great Bird Rock.f When Mr. Chapman was there in 1898 he found Puffins * "Bird Studies with a Camera," p. 160. " Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.," (1883), p. 392. It was on July 4th that Mr. Brewster and Professor Hyatt landed. Mr. Maynard's narrative is published in " Town and Coimtry " for 1879. t "The Auk," 1888, p. 133. GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 303 and Petrels the only birds nesting on the summit of the Great Bird Rock. ". . . . not a single descendant of the one hundred thousand Gannets which, according to Bryant, occupied the top of the Rock in 1860 now being found there."* He assessed the Gannets on Great Bird Rock at perhaps only l,500,t and those on the Little Bird Rock at 500, a sad falling off in regard to the former during eleven years In 1900 Mr. Job went to Bird Rock, as already mentioned, and again in 1904, and on the second visit the number of Gannets might, in his opinion, be probably put at 2,000. In the same year Bird Rock was visited by Mr. A. C. Bent, who has obliged me with the following notes from his memoranda J : — "June 24th, 1904. . . . They [the Gannets] are not now killed to any extent by the fishermen, very little egging is done, and only a very few are killed by the inhabitants of the Rock for food, hence they are very tame. Most of the birds nest on the west side of the Rock, fully two-thirds of them, about one-sixth on the two ends and only one-sixth on the whole east side, probably because most of the best ledges are on the west side, which are also the most inaccessible. I * " Bird Studies," p. 181. t " Bird Studies," p. 183. X See also his article in " Bird Lore " for 1908, p. 237. 304 THE GANNET should say that the Gannets are the most abundant birds ; certainly they are the largest and most conspicuous. The Kittiwakes make a close second. The Razorbills and the [A. C. Bent, Phot. CxANNETS ON THEIR NESTS. Brunnich's Murres are closely tied for third place. The Common Murres rank about fifth, the Puffins sixth and the Ringed Murres seventh. The Leach's Petrels would come in last, I suppose, though we saw very few burrows and not any birds. Assuming that there GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 305 were 10,000 birds, they would be divided up about as follows : — 2,500 Gannets, 2,000 Kittiwakes, 1,800 Razorbills, 1,600 Briinnich's Murres, 1,400 Murres {Uria troth), 100 Ringed Murres, 600 Puffins. " Practically all of the broader ledges were occupied by large nesting colonies of Gannets sitting as close as they could sit, often two or three rows deep, and many of the smaller or narrower ledges which were large enough to support their nests were occupied by them. They were decidedly the most conspicuous and striking features on the Rock, which may have led to our overestimating their abundance. Their nests varied greatly in size and style of construction, from practically nothing to well-made nests eighteen inches in diameter and five inches high. But as a rule they were fairly well made of fresh seaweed, kelp and rockweed, in many cases still wet, as if recently pulled up by the birds, but generally they were more or less dry. There were usually a few straws and feathers in and about the nests, and once a large piece of canoe birch-bark had been wrought in, probably as an ornament. There was always w 30(5 THE GANNET more or less filth about the nests, broken eggs, decaying fish and excrement, the ledges often being completely white- washed with the latter. They have a curious habit of disgorging whatever fish they have recently eaten when lA. C. Bent, Phot. GANNET S NESTS ON BIRD ROCK. they are disturbed and forced to fly away ; they go through a series of preliminary motions, pumping their necks up and down, straining, gaping and retching until the fish is finally forced out of the mouth and deposited on the ledge near the nest, where it is left to decay or dry in the GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 307 sun. These fish are often as much as a foot in length and generally partially digested. I could not make out whether this habit is caused by fright or by a desire to get rid of unnecessary weight ; probably the latter, as they are very docile and unsuspicious birds or very stupid and not easily frightened away. We had no difficulty in photographing them at short range, as they sat in their nests, craning their necks and staring at us stupidly, but if we came too near, the disgorging process would begin, they would move awkwardly away and gradually flop off over the edge of the cliff, uttering all the time a variety of loud guttural croaks and grunts, ' Kurrack,' ' Kurruck,' until they could spread their broad, black-tipped wings and sail gracefully out into space ; . . ." The day following Mr. Bent rowed to North, or Little, Bird Rock, now consisting of two perpendicular stacks and a pinnacle, and found that the flat top of one of the former was covered with nesting Gannets. With this addition, therefore, the total Gannet population of the Bird Rocks may perhaps be as high as 3,000. Bonaventure. — Audubon does not seem to have gone to Bonaventure, nor did Bryant visit it. The Gannets on that island were visited first by Mr. W. Brewster in 1881, although his party did not actually land, after- wards by Captain Collins in 1887, by the Rev. C. J. 308 THE GANNET Young in 1897, and by Mr. P. M. Chapman in July, 1898. They appear to have undergone a great deal of persecution, but in spite of it have recovered much of their former strength, so that in Mr. Chapman's opinion, this 4z 1^^"iir^.% X'f: C/iCTr Z5o/eet JO 12 ".-*■' 40 ^i '/6 ^A^ community may now number 7,000. I am much indebted to Mr. Chapman for a photograph of a ledge on the east side of Bonaventure, with about 400 Gannets on it, which can be seen through a magnifying glass to be nearly all facing towards the cliff ; here they feel themselves in such security that all efforts on Mr. Chapman's part to startle them into GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 311 flight were unsuccessful. Bonaventure is very precipitous on its north and east sides, with chfEs 250 feet in height. Its Gannets have, therefore, been tolerably secure from molestation, but Mr. Lucas doubts if their numbers were comparable to those on Bird Rock in its palmy days.* Extinct Canadian Gannetries. Perce Rock. — From Professor A. E. Verrill, to whose assistance I am indebted, we learn that Gannets were breeding as recently as 1861 in large numbers on Perce Rock,t which he describes as perpendicular on all sides, and not to be ascended by any ordinary means. Perce Rock is close to the mainland, and a few miles only from Bonaventure ; there is a good plate of it in Chapman's " Bird .Studies, "| but nothing is said about Gannets there, nor did Mr. Brewster find any in 1881. Great Manan Island. — Great Manan Gannet Rock is in Fundy Bay. In 1859 Mr. Verrill and Dr. Brewer visited this Gannet Rock and found only one or two pairs of Gannets nesting, but they were told there had been more before the building of the lighthouse. From this site persecution soon drove them away, although it was probably not entirely deserted until about 1866. At any rate, there were no Gannets left in 1873,§ and this is all the hght, as far * " The Auk," 1888, p. 134. t " Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.," IX., p. 140. J T. c, p. 130. § See Herrick, " Bull. Essex Institute," V. (1873), p. 39. 312 THE GANNET as Mr. Chapman knows, wliicli investigations can throw on the date of their extinction ; most hkely it was not at any time a large settlement. Oannet Rock, near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. — In 1856 Dr. Henry Bryant found a hundred and fifty Gannets' nests here,* but I am not in possession of any later information about this settlement. A short quotation may be given. He says, " The number of brown [immature] birds was about one to three of the white, or adult birds. On scrambling to the summit of the rock, we found the nests ranged all round its borders, most numerous on the northern aspect, where they formed a continuous row ; they were very bulky, composed entirely of eel-grass, and were apparently used for more than one season, as several of them had been recently repaired." Perroquet Island. — The Gannet is believed to have entirely ceased breeding at Perroquet [i.e., Puffin) Island, near Mingan, where in 1881 Mr. W. Brewster found several hundreds nestingf ; Mr. Lucas says that a few lingered as late as 1887, but their eggs were regularly taken.:]: Shag Rock. — In 1881 Mr. Brewster was informed of a few Gannets from Bird Rock having bred on Shag Rock, which is close to the Magdalen Islands, on the west side.§ The Gannet Islands, Labrador. — Some 400 miles * "Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.," 1857, p. 119. t " Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.," 1883, p. 39.'}. X " Tlie Auk," 1888, p. 134. § T.c, p. 391. GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 313 north of Funk Island, and about ten from the mainland of Labrador, are three islands named the Clannet Islands and Gannet Rock — an appellation which may possibly signify that Gannets once bred there, but the names may have an entirely different origin. Professor Newton has pointed out that these islands are several times mentioned in a journal by PERROQUET ISLAND, JULY' 2iST, 1881. George Cartwright,* but no hint is given of Gannets breeding upon them. Mr. W. Grenfell, who has often passed them, tells me that they reach to about 200 feet at the highest point. I am obliged to him and to Mr. McCrea for making inquiries, both as to the significance of the name, and as regards the birds themselves. * " A Journal .... on. the coast of Labrador." (Three Vols. 1792). See Vol. II., pp. G, 22-I-, 24(>, 247. CHAPTER X. ABANDONED BREEDING-PLACES. Former Breeding- Places, no longer inhabited — Alleged Breed- ing-Places of the Gannet in England — in Scotland — in Ireland — on the coast of Canada. Former Breeding- Places of Ganyiets. — None can fail to observe that sea-birds are very constant to the haunts they have once adopted, and this is emphatically true of the Gannet. But few changes have taken place — in historic times at any rate — in the nurseries of this home-abiding species, all of which, it will be remembered, are on islands. I think it may be said that but for the interference of man, in dispossessing the Gannets of some of their abodes, there would have been no abandonment of breeding-sites to record. Nor has any volcanic action ever dispossessed them of their island homes, as has happened once at least in the case of Sula serrator."^ Englajid. — Judging from the " Itinerarium," or journal * See BuUer's " Birds of New Zealand," ii., p. 179. ABANDONED BREEDING-PLACES 315 of the journey of William Botoner* — who is also known in history as William of Worcester — there must in the fifteenth century have been Gannets breeding on an island rock on the north coast of Cornwall, which at the present day goes by the name of " Gulland Rock." Botoner, whose journey seems on this occasion to have extended from Bristol to St. Michael's Mount on the French coast, after mentioning the islands of Edystone, St. Michael, and Ushand (Ushant), goes on to describe one called Pentybers, in these words : — " Pentybers-rok, maximus scopulus, in aqua Severn scita ex parte occidentali portus de Padistow ac castri Tyntagelle per 4 miliaria, et distat a firma terra per unum miliare, et ibi nidificant aves vocatse ganettys, gullys, see- mowys, et cseterse aves marinse." This Pentybers was almost certainly the same rock which now goes by the name of the Gulland, situated on the north * " Itinerarium sive Liber Rerum Memorabilium," Willelmi Botoner Diet, de Worcestre, Ex. cod. autographo autoris in bibKotheca Coll. Corp. Christi. Cant. No. 210. Edidit Jacobus Nasmith, Cantabrigise, 1778 (p. 111). Botoner was born in 1415 and died in 1482 ; the Itinerary is supposed to have been written in 1468. Besides Pentybers, Botoner describes other islands. Of Trescoe, in the Scilly Islands, he writes : " Insula Rascow pertinet Abbati Tavystock, continet in longitudine 3 miliaria, et in latitudine 3 miliaria, inculta, cum cuniculis [rabbits] et avibus vocatis pophyns [puffins] ;" and of another island : "non est poi^ulata, nisi silvestres herbas, aves vocat mewys [sea-mews] Kermerertes [Cormorants] et Katones [ ? Ratones] et muscae, id est mowses." 316 THE GANNET coast of Cornwall ; it is only a little island, but it is some 150 feet in height, and precipitous, and lies about a mile from the mouth of the river Camel, not far from Pentyr Point. Clearly it could not have been identical with Lundy Island, for Lundy is separately mentioned,* besides being a long way from Tintagel."f I learn from Mr. Walter Barratt, of Padstow, that many Gulls and other sea-birds still yearly nest on Gulland, but that certainly no Gannets have bred there in modern times. Turning to the journal of John Ray, the naturalist, who was at Padstow with Willughby in June, 1662, we find him alluding to there being Gannets near there, but this was long after the time of Botoner ; moreover, Ray gives no hint of their resorting for breeding purposes to Gulland or to Godreve, on which latter he and Willughby landed, or indeed to any island on the Cornish coast — in fact he did not even know that they bred on Lundy Island. J If Gannets ever bred in the Isle of Man, Mr. P. G. Ralfe, author of " The Birds of the Isle of Man " — a very competent authority — is of opinion that a lofty stack * " Nasmith," t.c, p. 155. t I must not omit to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Howard Fox for the great trouble he has taken in assisting to ascertain the identity of Pentybers. I " Memorials of John Ray, with his Itineraries," edited by E. Lankester (1846), p. 185. ABANDONED BREEDING-PLACES 317 at the south-east corner of the Calf, commonly known as the Burrow, must have been the place. But indeed Gannet Rock Lundy Island Gull and Rock (a former breeding place ) CORNWALL the only ground for suspecting their having bred there is one vague mention of them in Buchanan's " Rerum Scoticorum Historia " (1583), where, speaking of the Isle of Man, he says : — 318 THE GANNET " Frequens est cuniculis, avibusque marinis, eoque maxime genere anserum, quas Solanas vocamus."* Incidentally it may be remarked that the Gannet is not one of the Isle of Man birds mentioned by Ray and Willugliby in their chapter on Remarkable Isles where Sea-fowl build. t For the present Lundy Island must be reckoned among the abandoned breeding-places, but no one can doubt that a nesting site known to have been occupied for 636 years, and in all probability far longer, would again be tenanted by birds so attached to their island homes as Gannets, if they were given adequate protection. Scotland. — On the Scottish coast it seems possible that Gannets once nested on a few of the western islands, where they are now no longer met with, but the evidence about it is so meagre as to be almost worthless. Yet it must be remembered that young Gannets were eagerly sought after for food, and nowhere are such birds more easily driven from a breeding-place than on a small inhabited island, where the people would naturally take them. Accordingly we must not too hastily dismiss the testimony of Dean Donald Munro, that useful historian who visited the Western Isles in 1549, to the effect that at that period * Lib. i., xxxiv. t " Ornithologia " (1676), chapter VII., p. 16. ABANDONED BREEDING-PLACES 319 Gannets nested on Eigg and Rum, two islands which He on the west coast of Inverness-shire. It is true that of Rum, or Ronin, as he calls it, Munro merely says : — " Ronin . . . maney solan geise are in this ile," and of Eigg, No. 104 of his Hst of islands, he says very Uttle more. " Egga. North from Elian Murchd be foure myles, lyes ane iyle called iyle of Egga, foure myle lange and twa myle braid, guid maine land with a Paroch Kirk in it and maney Solane geese, and verey guid for store [i.e., pasture] namelie for sheip, with a haven for heighland boths [boats]." John Monipennie in his " Abridgement or Summarie of the Scots Chronicles," 1597, a work of little authority, has the same information, but he is merely repeating in different words what he culled from Munro, and it is unnecessary to quote from him further. It may be added that no hint is given of Gannets having ever nested in Eigg in modern times by Mr. Evans,* or by the Messrs. Macpherson,t in their accounts of the birds of this island. Among the many documents collected by Mr. G. G. Smith in "The Book of Islay " (1895) no mention is found of Solan Geese, nor is it likely that they ever bred on Islay, although in 1 703 Martin had written of the Solan Geese and Culterneb [Puffin] as being most numerous on that island. J * " Proc. Royal Physical Soc, Edinburgh," 1885, p. 443. t " Zoologist," 1888, p. 412. X " Western Islands of Scotland," ]>. 227. 320 THE GANNET Gannets are said to have bred at one time on Rona Island,* and as it is fairly precipitous, and only ten miles from Sulisgeir, where there are thousands, this seems not improbable. It is certain that they have not bred in the Orkneys proper in recent times, and perhaps never ; and Mr. Combe, of the Whalsey Skerries Lighthouse, agrees with Dr. Saxby in thinking that they have not bred on the North Stack, Shetland, t and this concludes all the possibly abandoned breeding-places for Scotland. Ireland. — As previously stated, J there is some reason for supposing that Gannets may have formerly bred on some rocks about four miles from the coast- of Mayo, although the the fact of Mr. Knox's having shot young ones which could fly§ proves nothing. Iceland. — The late Professor Newton, while disbeUeving in the existence of any Gannets at Drangey, thought that there was a possibility of their having bred on Mevenklint, a rock to the northward of Grimsey Island. Canada. — Two nurseries in North America have been * " Proc. Royal Physical Soc. Edinburgh," 1883-85, p. 65. I See " The Birds of Shetland " (1874), p. 322. \ See p. 74. § " Birds of Ireland," iii., p. 451. ABANDONED BREEDING-PLACES 321 entirely abandoned, as was stated in the last chapter {see p. 311), viz., a rock adjacent to Great Manan Island, and Perroquet Island, where Gannets bred up to 1887 as well as the settlements on Perce Rock, and on a rock near Yarmouth N.S., but it was owing entirely to man's interference that they were forsaken. In the sixteenth century there seem to have been Gannets on Funk Island. {See p. 294.) CHAPTER XI. ESTIMATE OF THE NUMBER OF GANNETS. An estimate of the total Gannet population — Comparison with that of other Sea-birds — The Kittiwake — The Guillemot — The Puffin — Puffins thought to be the most abundant sea-birds in Europe. An estimate of the total Gannet population. — The desirability of attempting censuses of some of our native birds was a favourite idea of John Wolley, and that acute observer even regarded it as one of the chief requirements of British ornithology . Difficult of application as was any sort of scheme, the idea did not fail to meet with Professor Newton's support, and after Wolley's death he made public the latter's views, as well as his own, on the subject.* The idea, however, of endeavouring to make an actual count of birds which nest in large communities — as the rock-breeding sea-fowl do — had either not at that time been thought of, or had been dismissed as impracticable. Yet it is among this class of birds that the most feasible hope of effecting a census Avith any degree of accuracy lies. Now, if there is * " On the possibility of taking an Ornithological Census," " Ibis," 1861, p. 190, and " Proc. Linnean Society, 1802 (Zool.)," p. 23. ESTIMATE OF THE NUMBER OF GANNETS 323 any species which lends itself to a scheme of counting more than another, it is the Gannet, which is large, slow in its movements, and very conspicuous, and, moreover, it is a species of which the breeding-places are so few, and all of them well known. In fact, the Gannet has but fifteen breeding-places — all of them on islands — and of what other European sea-bird can the same be said ? There are, it is true, a few northern species which breed in high latitudes — like the Little Auk — which have comparatively few breeding-sites, but none so few as fifteen. I must say that some of the estimates of Gannets at their breeding-places which have been put forward in the past, seem to an unbiased enquirer to be very much above the mark. Such estimates, I mean, as those given in a " Report on Herring Fisheries of Scotland " (1878, p. 171), which are repeated, with some variations, in Seebohm's " British Birds " (iii., p. 643), and elsewhere, and to which I shall not give further publicity by repeating them. They originated in a letter written by Captain S. McDonald, of "The Vigilant," in 1869, to Lord Caithness, which is printed as a note in the Report just mentioned. But McDonald's figures are admittedly only guesses, and according to most people's views they are much too high. The figures now submitted are supposed to be taken in the month of May. Let us for convenience sake fix a date, X 2 324 THE GANNET and suppose a census taken at every Gannetry on the 1st of May, 1910, which would be before any of the eggs would have had time to hatch. It seems simpler to take the month of May than to suppose a census done in August, and to let it include the young ones, of which a very large percentage appears to die a natural death during the first twelve months — that is, if they have not already been killed for eating by human beings. ESTIMATED NUMBER OF GANNETS (Sula hassano) IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. England — Lundy Island . . . . . . . . . . — Wales — Grassholm Island . . . . . . . . 400 Ireland — Bull Rock, CO. Cork 500 SkelligRock 16,000 — 16,500 Scotland — Ailsa Craig . . . . . . . . . . 6,500 St. Kilda— Borrera 16,000 Stack Lii 8,000 Stack Armin 6,000 30,000 ESTIMATE OF THE NUMBER OF GANNETS 325 Sulisgeir 8,000 Sule-skerry Stack *8,000 The Bass Rock 6,500 The Faeroes — Myggenaes . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 Iceland — Vestmann Islands . . . . . . 4,000 Eldey Geirfugladrangr . . . . . . 9,500 Grimsey . . . . . . . . 100 13,600 Canada — Bonaventure . . . . . . . . 7,000 Bird Rock 2,500 Little Bird Rock 500 10,000 101,000 These figures, which, as has been said, are exclusive of nestlings, and, in fact, include no young ones under eight months old, may not seem large, possibly they are below the truth, but I cannot think that they are much below it. * Estimated at 5,000 on p. 164, but I liave since thought it safe to raise the number to 8,000, which is still far below McDonald's figure. 326 THE GANNET Huge flocks of birds are very deceptive, and at first sight they are apt to appear larger than they really are. Assuredly a thousand big white birds cannot fail to make a great show, especially if they are on the wing. The incessant motion of so many pinions is trying to the eye, and I am positive that to some persons it is very delusive — producing a sort of kaleidoscopic effect. Even a number of birds when they are at rest are misleading enough for an experienced naturalist to greatly overrate them ; let those who disbelieve it ask some friend to look at seven or eight hundred dots of ink — which have been previously counted — spread out on a large sheet of paper, and then make him guess how many there are : the guess will generally be quite wide of the mark, according to my experience. Whatever the real number of Gannets may be — and probably it will ever remain a matter of conjecture — this much is certain, that they are essentially British birds, and that to the British Isles three-quarters of them belong by right of tenure of eight breeding-places, A comparison of the abundance of Gannets ivith that of other sea-birds. — Although it is somewhat foreign to the present treatise, which is about Gannets, to dilate on other birds, yet I must take leave to digress a little for the purpose of drawing a few comparisons between the Gannet ESTIMATE OF THE NUMBER OF GANNETS 327 population and that of certain other species. One hundred and one thousand Gannets is a total which is certainly less by tens of thousands than that of several sea-birds which inhabit the same sort of places. Of that no one can have much doubt. It is a total which must be considerably less than that of the other two British members of the great group of Steganopodes, viz., the Cormorant {Phalacrocorax carbo (L.)), and the Shag (P. graculus (L.)), because the distribution of the Cormorant extends over Asia and Australia, while the Shag, though inhabiting a much smaller area, is admittedly an abundant species ; on the other hand, if we only take the British Isles, the numbers of the Cormorant and the Shag respectively are, perhaps, not very different from the Gannet, at any rate they are near enough for comparison. If we allow that there are 76,000 Gannets in Great Britain and Ireland, as set forth in the preceding table, — whether on sufficient authority or not, the reader must judge, — it ought not to be too much to guess the Cormorants at 80,000 and the more plentiful Shags at 100,000. It has often been asked : What is the most abundant species of bird in the world ? That, much as we should like to know it, is a question impossible to answer. Some would say the Sparrow [Passer domesticus (L.)) or the Skylark {Alauda arvensis, L.). Charles Darwin thought it was 328 THE GANNET the Fulmar Petrel {Fulmarus glacialis (L.)), Others who have come after him conjectured that it might be the Little Auk {Mergulus alle (L.)), but the breeding-places of the Little Auk are limited. It is not likely that at the present time the palm for superiority would be held by either the Fulmar or the Little Auk. There is a competitor which I should place before either of them, and that is the common Kittiwake Gull {Rissa tridactyla (L.)). Kittiwakes are marvellously plentiful right up to the North Cape, where Mr. H. Seebohm estimated there were 500,000 at Svserholt,* when he was there, and attempted a reckoning. In the Fseroes they were found by Colonel Feilden breeding in countless thousands, f and plenty of other striking evidence might be adduced. Moreover, the Kittiwake of the North Pacific, where it is very abundant, cannot be kept apart from R. tridactyla, which further increases the tale of its numbers, which unquestionably are immense. The Common Guillemot {Uria troile (L.)), again, must be one of the most abundant birds in the northern hemisphere. In the Faeroes, H. C. Muller, a good and truthful naturalist and resident in those islands, states that as recently as 1862 the annual consumption of Guillemots was 55,000. { * " A History of British Birds," III., p. 342. t " Zoologist," 1872, p. 3288. X " FtTjroernes Fuglefauna " (18G2). ESTIMATE OF THE NUMBER OF GANNETS 329 Mr. T. H. Nelson says that 80,000 Guillemots' eggs are taken in a season by the Flamborough Head climbers,* in an ordinary year, which would be two or three layings, but it is not likely that they get three-quarters of them. The Rev. Neil Mackenzie states that he has seen about 12,400 Guillemots' eggs collected on one small island at St. Kilda, and that probably not more than half of them were taken by the inhabitants. f It would be easy to adduce other evidence. Briinnich's Guillemot {Uria bruennichi, S.) is also immensely numerous, but the area occupied by it is more limited than the area of the Common Guillemot ( U. troile) — that is, if we distinguish it from U. arra, Cass. This latter is termed by Mr. H. W. Elliott the great egg-bird of the North Pacific, frequenting more particularly the Prybilov Islands " by millions. "{ At the present time the superabundance of the Puffin {Fratercula arctica (L.)) has impressed itself upon many observers, and, after collecting from various quarters all the available evidence about it, it certainly seems as if the Puffin were now the dominant species, numerically * " Birds of Yorkshire," IT., p. 717, corrected from 130,000 in the " Errata." t " Annals Scot. Nat. Hiat.," 1905, p. 149. { " Report on the Prybilov group [Alaska]," 1873. 330 THE GANNET speaking, in Europe, yet it only lays one egg.* Of course we must bear in mind that the numbers of all birds fluctuate, and from so many causes, that what is the most abundant species now, may be by no means so in another quarter of a century. In the southern hemisphere, judging from what Mr. William Sclater and others tell us, it is very likely that the dominant species would be the prolific Jackass Penguin [Spheniscus demersus (L.)).t % * Professor Newton — an exceptionally cautious writer — thought that he might venture on an estimate of 3,000,000 Puffins for the Shiant Isles (" Dictionary of Birds," p. 751), and the Rev. Neil Mackenzie would allow 3,000,000 more for St. Kilda (" Annals of Scottish Nat. Hist.," 1905, p. 151), where, according to Mr. J. Sands, 89,000 were taken in one year — the year 1876 (" Life in St. Kilda "). See also Wiglesworth's " St. Kilda " (p. 59). But it is far from being in the British Isles only that Puffins abound. There are endless streams of them in the Faeroes, and here we are on safe ground, having statistics of the numbers formerly taken. In his " Fseroernes Fuglefauna " (1862), Sysselmand Muller — a most reliable naturalist — tells us that 235,000 Puffins used to be annually gathered by the inhabitants. Now there is no longer the same demand for them, but this figure was no doubt quite correct when Muller wrote, and the same number might be gathered again. In Iceland also the Pviffin must be very abundant, for in 1897 the number taken at one station — Sulusker, see p. 281 — was ascertained by Mr. E. Gurney to have been 31,143. t 5'ee the photograiihs of thein in " Three Voyages of a Naturalist," by M. J. Nicoll, and in " The Condor," 1907, p. 71 ; also see " Fauna of South Africa " (IV., p. 520). In 1901 Mr. Sclater tells us 638,000 eggs were gathered by Government agents ; in 1902, 469,400. % Birds in Markets. — -Nothing which will help vis to the establishing of some standard whereby we may gauge bird populations is to be desijised, and as I have gone out of the way to discuss the subject, I cannot help ESTIMATE OF THE NUMBER OF GANNETS 331 suggesting that there is a good deal to be learnt from the market returns which are sometimes kept in large towns. Very remarkable statistics might, I believe, be compiled about Woodcocks, by any one who had leisure to seek them, but the undertaking would be a work of labour. Already some of value have been collected by Mr. L. Ternier of Honfieur, who says that in 1902-3 24,247 Woodcocks were brought to the poultry markets of Paris, in 1903-4 23,090, and in 1904-5 30,200 (" Proc. 4th Intl- Con- gress," p. 660). Unfortunately no returns are obtainable from the markets of London. As is well known. Thrushes have long been an important article of consumption in many countries of Europe ; in some cities they have been annually sent to market in incredible quantities, and particularly used this to be the case in the South of France, where, in consequence, they have now decreased in numbers. From the authors of " Richesses ornitho- logiques du Midi de la France " (1859), p. 208, we learn of 315,000 Song- Thrushes (T Urdus musicus) having been captured in a limited extent of coimtry in a year, together with 35,000 Blackbirds and Mistle-Thrushes, but they are not any longer taken in such abundance. Then again, there is the trade in Larks. Professor Newton quotes (Yarrell's " British Birds," 4th edition, I., p. 621) J. M. Bechstein's statement that 404,000 Larks — presumably all Alauda arvensis, L. — were brought into the city of Leipzig in one month (probably October) of the year 1720 (see " Gemeinniitzige Naturgeschichte Deutschlands," 2nd Afl., Bd. III., p. 779). Stupendous as is this number, it finds confirmation in Naumann's remark that the excise lists still showed that 500,000 were being supplied annually to Leipzig when he wrote, while even more were sent to other towns (" Naturgeschichte der Vogel Deutschlands," 1824, IV., p. 185). In France also the trade in Larks was, and still is, very large. To Mr. L. Ternier I am indebted for a great deal of information about this industry, and for statistics of the numbers sold in the markets (Halles Centrales) at Paris. In 1898 the number returned as sold was 1,419,891 ; in 1899 1,179,142 ; in 1900 927,806 ; in 1901 1,238,277 ; in 1902 961,905. Since then the figures have been rather lower, and in 1909 Mr. Ternier is informed the supply had dropped to 355,000. But this is only for Paris, every other market town, as Mr. Ternier observes, receives its supply also, and a very large supply in some cases ; for instance, Mr. Ternier states that in the market of Argenton, which is a small town in the Department of Indre, about 168,000 Larks, believed to be nearly all Alauda arvensis, are sold in a season. Again, there is Mr. Robert 332 THE GANNET Gray's quotation from some official som"ce— but he does not say what, and Mr. Ternier is unable to find it for me — of 1,255,500 Larks having been taken in the vicinity of Dieppe in 1867-8 (" Birds of the West of Scotland," p. 123). Something also I think is to be gathered from the number of Ostriches which are now kept for the profit arising from their feathers. In 1896 the number of Ostriches farmed in Cape Colony was officially returned at 225,000, and in 1904 at 357,808 ; since then they are believed by Professor Duerden to have greatly increased, but later statistics, I am informed by the Agent-General, are not available. The South American Ostriches, commonly called Rheas {Rhea americana. Lath.) in the Argentine States, are even more abundant than the Cape Ostriches. In 1909 the number of Rheas in semi-captivity was returned by H.M. Consul at Buenos Ayres as being 409,000 (" The Field," October 2nd, 1909). CHAPTER XII. NIDIFICATION AND INCUBATION. Habits of the Gannet during the period of its nidification — The period of incubation — Absence of " a hatching-spot " in the Gannet — Its egg. The Gannet' s Nidification. — Having now discussed all the Gannet's breeding-places, used and disused, and hazarded a guess at the number of individuals resorting to each of them, we pass on to another and different section of this bird's life-history, and we cannot do better than begin with what is the most important period of every bird's existence — its nidification. I know that there are some naturalists who look upon very minute details of a bird's habits and economy as superfluous. Others there are on the contrary, and I think these are much better advised, who deem that every note, every attitude, every change in flight or gait, every alteration as regards food and nidiflcation, and every moult of feather must have its reason, and accordingly be worthy of study — whereby we may elucidate its meaning. Assuredly, if there is anything lying behind the feathers of a bird which is akin to the mind in a human being, 334 THE GANNET it is only by close study that we have a chance of fathoming it. Gannets — which, like nearly all other sea-fowl, are birds of social predilections, and breed in large companies — must needs return to their breeding-places early in the spring, because their nursery operations are of the longest, lasting over four months, that is, if we calculate from the period of their commencing to build to the time when the young bird essays its first flight from the rocks. Accordingly they make their appearance about the end of February at the Bass Rock and the other Scotch breeding- places, fly a good many times around their accustomed home, and, when March has set in, each one proceeds to select its ledge and begin building. I can testify to there being plenty of nests at the Bass by the beginning of March. Amongst those who, from being on the spot, certainly ought to know best, it is the common opinion that Gannets pair for life ; but this belief has no other foundation than the fact — admittedly a suggestive one — of precisely the same rocks being occupied year after year. The Nest* — Nearly every Gannet's nest which has come * Caliology (Gr. Ka\i