36 THE GANNET > 



were seen on December 27th. 1882, and January 20th, 

 ] 884.* Mr. Boyd Alexander has recorded how, " on leaving 

 Lisbon on December 20th (1897), the sea, as far as Corunna 

 (about 250 miles), presented an extraordinary sight, for over 

 its surface skimmed countless numbers of Gannets, which 

 looked like innumerable moving specks of white in the far 

 distance."! This extraordinary assemblage must have been 

 composed entirely of adult birds, and such numbers were 

 very noteworthy. 



It is not infrequently met with in the western Mediter- 

 ranean, and some have been obtained in Vaucluse, south of 

 France (Guende et Reguis), and others near Hyeres. It 

 received admission into the Italian avifauna in 1877, | when 

 a young male was killed in November ; this, together with 

 an adult, are in the museum at Florence, and it was not 

 until 1898 that a third was taken. § In Sicily it is less 

 rare, and Mr. Whitaker has obtained both adult and young ; 

 he has also found immature Gannets to be not uncommon 

 on the Tunisian coast. || 



Many English observers have seen them in the Bay of 

 Biscay, but they are apparently not common there, from 



* t.c, 1884, p. 4. t " Ibis," 1898, p. 285. 



t "Ibis," 1881, 13. 216. § " Ornis," 1899, p. 242. 



II " Birds of Tunisia," II., p. 158, and c/. " Ornis," 1903-4, p. 59G. 



