176 THE GANNET 



because, when it is winter with us, it is summer with the 

 people of the south. These birds are very longhved — a fact 

 which the inhabitants have proved by marks upon certain 

 of them. The produce of these birds supports upon the 

 Rock thirty or forty men of the garrison ; and some rent is 

 paid by them to the lord of the Rock." 



Major's narrative bears the stamp of truth, and is surely 

 that of an eye-witness, which he may well have been. He 

 was born, as has been said, quite near to the Bass Rock, 

 and his early life before he removed to the university, was 

 probably spent within easy view of its lofty summit. The 

 story of the rejection by the Gannets of a first-caught fish for 

 a better one he may have had from the garrison, — 

 a story which is subsequently repeated, and almost in the 

 same words by Hector Boece, Gesner, Olaus Magnus, Leslie, 

 Aldrovandus and Jonston. All these doubtless copied it 

 from Major, or from one another, but it is a habit which is not 

 confirmed by anything I could learn at the Bass, and may 

 have had its origin in the fact of the Gannet's having 

 the power to retain several fish in its gullet at the same 

 time. 



4. Mr. John Anderson informs me that in the Historical 

 Department at the General Register House (Edinburgh) 

 there are, under his charge, a series of "Libri emptorum," 

 giving the daily purchases made for King James IV. 's 



