DISTRIBUTION OF THE GANNET 39 



is probably seldom further south than Lat. 45° S., and that 

 only for non-breeders, but its northern limit reaches to within 

 the Arctic Circle, for there is a breeding place on Grimsey 

 Island off the north coast of Iceland. If it were not for that 

 circumstance the area of its distribution would correspond 

 with that accorded to the Great Auk. The Gannet's 

 metropolis is St. Kilda, and its summer quarters may be 

 defined as being the coasts of England, Scotland and 

 Ireland, and more particularly the west coasts, as well as 

 the rocky Feroe Islands and Iceland. On the coast of 

 Norway it is never known to have bred, and very few, we are 

 told by Professor Collett, ever proceed beyond the North 

 Cape, but it has been recorded by Herr Goebel in Russian 

 Lapland {I.e.), and has even received a Finnish name, 

 according to Palmen. In the Baltic it is but a straggler. 



As regards America, there are now two " Ganne tries," 

 if it be allowable so to term a Gannet camp (instead of five 

 as formerly) — both in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, 

 which will be described in Chapter VII. I learn from Mr. C. 

 Helms that, though sometimes seen in Davis Straits, the 

 Gannet is only a straggler to Greenland itself, and that 

 only five examples are known to him, viz., one from north 

 and four from south Greenland, and two of these were 

 found drifting dead on the sea ; very possibly they belonged 

 to one of the Icelandic settlements. 



