and throat naked. Nostrils basal, obliterated. Legs short, strong, placed rather
backward ; three toes in front, one behind, articulated to the inner surface of the
tarsus, all four toes united by membrane; claw of the middle toe pectinated.
Wings long, first quill-feather the longest. Tail cuneiform.
The Gannet is a constant resident on our coast, but with
considerable change of locality, depending on the season of
the year. The only breeding-station in England is on Lundy
Island, which would appear from Leland to have been occupied
by this species in the time of Edward II., and Drayton
alludes to it in his ‘ Polyolbion,’ Song 4. In spite of the
protection afforded by the proprietor, few birds succeed in
rearing their young there ; and more than twenty years ago,
a colony, supposed to be an off-shoot from Lundy, established
itself on an island off the coast of Pembrokeshire, in Wales,
where it still thrives.
In Scotland the breeding-places of this species are more
numerous. On the east coast the only one is the well-known
Bass Bock; but on the west side there are four, namely:
Ailsa Craig; the islet of Borrera, close to St. Kilda ; the
island of Sula Sgeir, or North Barra, on which from 2,000 to
3,000 birds are sometimes taken in a season ; and the Stack
of Suleskerry, about forty miles west of Stromness, in Orkney.
From Ailsa Craig the birds disperse themselves in
the daytime along the neighbouring Scottish coast, and also
visit the northern shores of Ireland with great regularity.
From the highest point of Kathlin Island, off Antrim, the
Editor has watched a continuous stream of birds coming
from the Craig in the early morning, and by following it up,
the eye was directed to the position of the rock, which is
upwards of forty miles distant.
In Ireland Sir B. Payne Gallwey says that from 300 to
400 birds nest on the Little Skellig, off the coast of Kerry;
the species also breeds on the Fastnet Bock, off Cape Clear,
and numerously on the Bull Bock at the entrance of Bantry
Bay. The ‘ Stags’ (i.e. Stacks) of Broadhaven, off the coast
of Mayo, on which the bird formerly bred, are now abandoned.
In the Fseroe Islands the Gannet breeds on Myggenass,
the most western of the group, where the 25th of January
is a festival in consequence of the arrival of this bird. In
Iceland it has several breeding-places; and thousands nest
on the Magdalene Islands, and some other rocks in the Gulf
of St. Lawrence. Its winter range extends over the North
Atlantic down to North Africa and Madeira on this side, and
the Gulf of Mexico on the other; but it seldom enters the
Baltic or goes far up the Mediterranean. After stormy
weather it has occasionally been taken at a considerable distance
inland. In Africa, from Angola southward, the place
of our bird is taken by S. capensis, which has a nearly black
tail; and it is in the Southern Hemisphere that the genus
is best represented.
The Gannets at the Bass Bock have been frequently described,
but by few so fully as by Mr. E. F. Booth of
Brighton, in his ‘ Bough Notes,’ pt. v., with six beautiful
coloured illustrations, after drawings by Mr. E. Neale,
showing the successive stages of plumage. The Gannets
assemble in March, and an egg was once laid by the end
of that month, but as a rule incubation does not commence
until the early part of May. Owing to interference
from sight-seers, the birds have to some extent retired
from the more accessible portions, but it does not appear
that there is any material falling off in the number on the
Rock, although fewer young are annually collected than
formerly, when from 1,500 to 2,000 have been taken; now
the average is about 800. The beginning of August is the
usual time for the “ harvest,” the young birds being hooked
up, killed, and thrown into the sea, where a boat is in waiting
to pick up the bodies. These are plucked, cleaned, and
half-roasted, after which they are sold at from eightpence to
a shilling each ; but the Editor was told by the landlord of
the inn at Canty Bay, who rents the Bass, that the old race
of “ goose ” eaters was dying out, and there would soon
be few left who could relish a “ goose ” on its merits; the
majority buying the birds in ignorance of what they were, and
because they yielded a good deal of food for the price. The
fat is boiled down into oil, and the feathers, after being well
f