14^ The Ottawa Naturalist. [November 



had doubtless strayed from the Bass Rock or from the coast of 

 Fife. The Solan-g-oose is not considered edible, yet forsooth the 

 Scotch are sometimes charged with eating them. Still the cadger 

 sought not to dispose of his gannet as he did of his turbot and 

 skate, and one of the things yet vivid in my memory is that bird 

 sitting at the end of the cart greedily gulping down a fish every 

 time its owner offered one, whilst the patient horse drew the load 

 offish up the steep High street. 



Last August and September (1899) ^ ^ad a rare opportunity 

 of seeing the white gannets at their native haunts at the Bird 

 Rocks and at Bonaventure Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 The nesting season was then of course over^ and some of the 

 birds had seemingly migrated south, yet this was one of the finest 

 sights I have witnessed in my natural history studies. On certain 

 dull evenings in summer the chimney-swifts congregate around 

 the Parliament buildings in immense numbers, and if those who 

 are familiar with the spectacle presented by an assemblage 

 of some thousands of these birds, can in imagination magnify 

 them in size to that of a goose, and bring them comparatively low 

 down so that the effect of size is not lost, some idea may be formed 

 of what I saw. At Bonaventure Island the Gannets readily 

 associate with the murres and gulls, but never with their allies, 

 the cormorants, and vice versa with the cormorants at Percy 

 , Rock adjacent, and it is a funny sight to see the rocks of the one 

 place white with gannets, and the rocks of the other black with 

 cormorants, both species being in full view at the same time. It 

 is like the old story repeated about the Jews who had no dealings 

 with the Samaritans. 



In examining the bodies of four specimens of gannets I was 

 surprised to find the entire absence of fat, just where one would 

 have expected to find it — in a water bird. Instead there was a 

 wonderful provision of nature. The skin hung loosely, as it were 

 away from the body, being connected to it by membranous tissue 

 forming a wonderful receptacle for air : thus giving to the bird 

 great buoyancy. 



Nothing could well be imagined more beautiful than the iris 

 of the white gannet. The books describe it as white, but it is 

 difficult to give it any true description, and must be seen in order 



