24 THE GANNET 



There are nine ways in which the name " Gannet," as 

 appHed to the bird, has been spelt, including " Gaunt." 

 " Gaunte " is made use of in John Skelton's " Boke of 

 Philip Sparrow," 1508 ; and " Gaunt," which is the same 

 word, by Sir H. Gilbert, in 1583 (" Hakluyt's Voyages," 

 III., p. 195). *t In Ralfe's " Birds of the Isle of Man " 

 " Gaunt " is given as a provincialism formerly in use. 



Origin of Solan. — The origin of the name " Solan," — 

 Solendce of The Cupar Codex (believed to have been written 

 in 1447), — a name much more made use of in Scotland than 

 " Gannet," and which Conrad Gesner in 1555 spelled 

 " Soland," is thus given by John Blaeu in his great geo- 

 graphical work { : — " Hi anseres nomine vulgari e Latino, 

 ut puto, detorto, Solen vocantur, quod male pronunciant 

 Soland, id est, anniversarii : ad nos enim veniunt semel 



* According to Pennant, this latter spelling has been applied to Podicipes 

 cristatiis (" British Zool.," IT., p. 498), and Mr. Harting gives a possible 

 instance of its being used for a Grebe in Edward I.'s time (" Zoologist," 

 1884, p. 350). 



f In one version of the " Proniptorium Parvulorum," an English-Latin 

 Dictionary, compiled in the Fourteenth century, occurs : " Gante, byrde, 

 Bistarda," to which the late Mr. Albert Way, in his edition, published in 

 184.3 by the Camden Society, appended a note (p. 186) to the effect that 

 Gante meant Gannet, but the passage cited by that learned antiquary in 

 support of this view does not confirm it, for it is an entry in the " Exchequer 

 Roll of Normandy," A.D. 1180 (p. 57), of a payment of £6 3s. 9d. for the 

 pasturage and carriage of 120 gantarum brought from England to Nor- 

 mandy. The ganta here must, in Professor Newton's opinion, have been 

 common domestic Geese, and he adds, in the " Manipulus Vocabulorum," 

 a similar work of later period by Levins, we have (ed. Wheatley, 1867, 

 col. 88) Gannet rendered by Penelops, that is to say, some sort of Duck. 



X " Geographia Blavianse," 1662, Lib. xii., xiii. (Dutch edition, 1654). 

 I am indebted to the late Professor Newton for a sight of this rare and 

 splendid folio, not often to be seen. 



