46 THE GANNET 



In the "Annals of England," by John Stow (1631), the 

 passage is rendered : — 



" It bringeth forth Conies verie plentifull ; it hath 

 pigeons [? Columha livia] and other Foules, which Alex- 

 ander Necham calleth Ganimedas birdes, having great 

 nestes."* 



For a long interval after this there seem to be no more 

 Gannet memorials in connection with Lundy. Willughby 

 and Ray evidently were not aware of this station, neither 

 did Montagu know of it, though a Devonshire man, nor is 

 there anything concerning Lundy Gannets in Camden's 

 " Britannia." That they continued breeding there we may 

 look upon as almost certain, but it is not until 1830 that we 



* No passage of the kind alluded to seems to be in Necham's " De Naturis 

 Rerum," and it therefore must be sought in some other of his writings. 

 It may be remarked that " Foules " is not a literal translation of the word 

 " struconas," and Professor Newton thought it should be " struthonas," 

 observing that the c and t are often indistinguishable in old MSS., and t very 

 often written for th {the h being silent). Professor Skeat observes also 

 that the Greek arTpovBo<; (whence CTTpovOiwv) was vaguely used, for all 

 sorts of birds, from the Sparrow to the Eagle. Three hundred years later, 

 the poet Michael Drayton (cjuoting Steinman, tells us, I.e., p. 330, from 

 Baker, the Latin translator of De la Moor's " Life of Edward II."), returns 

 to the subject in his " Polyolbion," and versifies the birds of Ganymed, 

 which bred on Lundy Island, thus : — 



" This Lundy is a nymph to idle toys inclin'd 

 And all on pleasure set, doth whollie give her mind 

 To see upon her shores her fowl and conies spread, 

 And wantonly to hatch the birds of Ganimed." 



Song IV.; u. 11-14. 

 Ganymede, in mythology, was changed by Jupiter into an Eagle, 

 according to some, which may have led Necham, by a stretch of thought, 

 to use this name for the Gannet (Newton in litt.). 



