GA RDENER-BIRD— GA RE-FO WL zo-^ 



Structurally the Gannet presents many points worthy of note, 

 such as its closed nostrils, its aborted tongue, and its toes all 

 connected by a web — characters which it possesses in common 

 with most of the other members of the group of birds (Stegano- 

 PODES) to which it belongs. But more remarkable still is the 

 system of subcutaneous air-cells, some of large size, pervading 

 almost the whole surface of the body, communicating Avith the 

 lungs, and capable of being inflated or emptied at the will of the 

 bird. This peculiarity has attracted the attention of several 

 writers — Montagu, Sir R. Owen {Froc. Zool. Soc. 1831, p. 90), and 

 Macgillivray ; but a full and particular account of the anatomy of 

 the Gannet is still to be desired. 



In the southern hemisphere the Gannet is represented by tAvo 

 nearly allied but somewhat smaller forms — one Sula capensis, in- 

 habiting the coast of South Africa, and the other, S. serrator, the 

 Australian seas. Both much resemble the northern bird, but the 

 former seems to have a permanently black tail, and the latter a 

 tail the four middle feathers of which are blackish-brown with 

 white shafts. 



Apparently inseparable from the Gannets generically are the 

 smaller birds well known to sailors by the name of BoOBY, which 

 has passed into an English byword, though few know its Por 

 tuguese origin. 



GARDENER-BIRD, see Bower-Bird. 



GARE - FOWL ^ (Icelandic, Geirfugl ; Gaelic, Gearbhul). the 

 anglicized form of the Hebridean name of a large sea-bira, for- 



perhaps fallacious. It seems to be certain that in former days fishes, and 

 herrings in particular, were at least as plentiful as now, if not more so, notwith- 

 standing that Gannets were more numerous. Those frequenting the Bass were 

 reckoned by Macgillivray at 20,000 in 1831, while in 1869 they were computed 

 at 12,000, showing a decrease of two-fifths in 38 years. On Ailsa in 1869 there 

 were supposed to be as many as on the Bass, but their number was estimated at 

 10,000 in 1877 {Report on the Herring Fisheries of Scotland, 1878, pp. xxv. and 

 171), — being a diminution of one-sixth in eight years, or nearly twice as great as 

 on the Bass. The falling-off has since been still greater, but I have no means of 

 computing it. 



^ "Avis Gare dicta, Corvo Marino Similis, Ovo niaximo " is included iu 

 Sibbald's treatise De A'/iimalibiis Scotim (p. 22), published in 1684, being the 

 first printed notice of this bird as British, and apparently on information 

 derived from a MS. description of the Western Islands by Dean Munro, dra\vn 

 up about 1549 (c/. J. A. Smith, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotl. xiii. p. 84, and xiv. 

 p. 436). A modified, not to say corrupt, version of a transcript of this MS., 

 now in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, was printed in 1809 by Pinkerton 

 {Coll, Toy. end Trav. iii. p. 730), who used the same spelling. In 1698 Martin 

 [Voij. to St. Kilda, p. 48) had the name "Gairfowl." Sir R. Owen, in 1864, 

 adopted the form " Garfowl," without, as would seem, any precedent authority. 

 Mr. Alexander Carmichael (Harvie-Brown and Buckley, Vertebr. Faun. Outer 



