32 THE GANNET 



{i.e., Sea Sule or Solan) is supplied with a large comb on 

 the top of its head, stated in the text to be red. The Bishop 

 was generally accurate, but here his description of the so- 

 called Gannet applies better to the drake of Somateria 

 spectabilis, with which he may have somehow confounded it. 

 7. This concludes all the references to figures given by 

 the early writers, or such as call for any remark, for there 

 is no figure of a Gannet, as has been supposed, in 

 Aldrovandi's " Ornithology " (1603). That which John 

 Jonston, the copyist of Aldrovandi's, erroneously thought 

 to represent this bird (Lib. XIX., Cap. xx.), and which he 

 reproduced as such in his " Historia Naturalis de Avibus " 

 (Tab. XLVii.) under the title of " Anser Bassana," or 

 " Scottisch Gans," was meant, remarks Professor Newton 

 {in litt.), by Aldrovandi to illustrate his article on the Great 

 Bustard {I.e., index under " Gustarda "). It is more like 

 a Scoter Duck than anything else, but is armed with spurs (!), 

 and was considered by Professor Newton to be an adaptation 

 from Gesner's plate. Neither has Belon any figure of the 

 Gannet, but among the rude woodcuts of birds in the 

 " Ortus Sanitatis " of De Cuba (1480), there is one which, 

 under the name of Mergus, is possibly intended to be a 

 Gannet (" Tract, de Au," LXXV.). De Cuba's illustrations 

 are said to have been generally drawn to fit his own 

 descriptions. 



