280 COMMON GANNET.
pus gale or a thick i;oljl fog mar tho beauty of, th«i day, sin- gathers
her apparel around her, and shrinks deeper ¡Mo her bed ; and should
i l rain> she places her body so as to prevent the inundation of her
household. How happy, Header,| must .-he be when mow and then her
keep eyes distinguish in the crowd her affectionate mate, as he returns
from the chase, with, loaded bill, and. has already marked her .among
i;he thousand beauties all equally anxious for the arrilal of their lords !
Now by her side he alights as; gently, as is in-his .nature, presents .-her
a welcome repast, talks perhaps cheeringly to her,, and again
opening his broad wings departs in search of a shoal of herrings. .At
length, the oral chest' opens, and out crawls the tender youngbut I»!
the little thing is black. What a S t r a n g contrast to the almost pure
« g M e f the parpnt! Yet the mother loves it, with all fc tenderni
»s* of other mothers. She has anxiously .expected its appearance,
a&iat once sh<! nurse*. il with care; but .so, tender is. it that pje prefers
waiting a while before she feeds it. The time how,over «><>11 comes,
and with exceeding pare-she provides some well macerated morseis
which she drops into its open mouth.; so vvell, prepared are they that.
«Hiere is no. instance on record of a (iannct,: even of that, tender, age,
having suffered from dyspepsia or indigestion.:
, The. male («annul assists in incubating, though he sits less aysi-
• luqusly than. the. female; ami. on such . occasions,, the free bird supplies
the other with,food. The sight of. U>.o,:youiig>r(iaimet just after
birth might not please thoieye (if many, for it is then quite naked,
and of a deep bluish black, much resembling a young Cormorant.
Its abdomen is extremely large, its neck thin, its head large, its eves
88 p i sightless, its wings hut slightly developed. . When you look at
it three weeks afterwards, it . has grown much, and almost entirely
changed its colour, for, now, with the exception of certain parts of jife
neck, the short thighs, and the belly, it ^s covered with yellowish soft
and thick down. In this state.it looks perhaps as uncouth as at first,
UuUt grows so rapidly that at the end oi'. three weeks more, you find
its dow.ny coat patched with feathers in the most picturesque manner
imaginable. Looking around you, you observe that all the young are
not of tho same growth; for all the Gannets do not lay on the same
day, and probably all the young are not equally supplied with food.
At this period, the great eyrie.' looks a.s if all its parts luui become
common property ; the nests, which were once well fashioned) are
COMMÖN, ,GANNET.
trampled down , the young birds S B everywhere or ranywhere; allocking
creatures they are,, and with an appearance H B |
which I have never observed m apy other species'of bird, and which
-would lead B B S S that,they care a s B about the present as
M Now the old hirds are f»eed ,of past, of their cares, they
<irop such fish-as they,have-obtained by'the side-pf their young, and,
like Cormorants, Pelicans,, or Herpps,seldom bring.a supply oftener
than once a-day... Strange to say, the,young birds at this B K
pot appear to pay the least- attention to the. "Id ptff% which occasionally,
alight-near tl.otn, M drop fish for. them to.fped upon. , •
Gannets do not feed, as sqme have supposed, and as many have b:e-
¡ — only;, for 1 have found in their stomachs codlings
eight inches • in length, as wo» ,:« very .large B B H H
vvhichiiby,thc way, arc quito.differ.ont from those so abundantly met with
- Uhe t youngfnever k m the spot on which they have .keen reared
until they are M i to fly, when they separate from the • birds,
^ d do not rejoin them w i l l « fetf« year after. Although I have
;„.a few instances found individuals yet patched with d a r k l y spots,,
a n d w i t W o ^ o f tieir,primary quills still black, I am confident that
it is notiuntil the end of two years that they acquire thmr lull plu-
• I I .have seen .some with one wing almost pure black, and the
tail o^that colour also ; # t h e! f twith the tail only black; and several
With pure black feathete interspersed .among the general white plum
a g e : . : . . ' • • : - - • : - • • •" '' •'
I know of no other bird that has so few formidable enemies as the
Gannet. Not one of the speteies of Lesfris with. which I am acquainted,
ever attempts to molest i t ; and, although I have seen the frigate
. Pelican in quest of food within a. short distance o f * I never saw it
„tier injury. The insular rooks on whiclf it breeds are of course inaccessible
t<> quadrupeds. The only animals, so far as I know, that
¿ e l on tho eggs: or young, are the Larmmariwm; and Lams alaucu*.
It is said that the Skua, iestris, Catarractes, sometimes pursues thp
Gannets,. but that species does not exist in North America; and I am
inclined to doubt the truth of this statement, for I have never seen
a Lestris of any kind attack a bird equal to itself in size and strength.
Soon after the young Gannets are able to %,-all the birds of the
species leave the breeding place, and absent themselves until the fol