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 



