184 THE GANNET 



8. In 1548 Jeane de Beaugue, accompanied the Sieur 

 d'Esse on a military expedition to Scotland, and from his 

 " Histoire de la Guerre d'Ecosse pendant les campagnes 

 1548 et 1549 " Mr. Hume Brown has translated some 

 interesting passages in his recent work entitled " Early 

 Travellers in Scotland."* In one of these there is the 

 following allusion to the Gannets on the Bass : — " The 

 place where they made their first attempt [to land] 

 was the Isle des Magots [Bass Rock], so called on 

 account of the large white birds like swans that make 

 their nests there. The Scots receive it as a fact that 

 the hundred and twenty soldiers who form the ordinary 

 garrison of the Castle of Bass, which is built on the island, 

 live for the most part on nothing else than the fish daily 

 carried thither by these birds ; and burn no other wood 

 than what these wild geese bring in spring to build their 

 nests with, this being sufficient to last them for a whole 

 year." It has been suggested that the French sailors called 

 the Bass an " Isle des Magots " because it was inaccessible 

 to any but " magots," i.e., monkeys, but " Margot "is the 

 common name for the Gannet on the north coast of France, 

 where I have heard fishermen use it, besides de Beaugue 

 offers that explanation, so there is no need to seek further 

 for the meaning of it. 



* Edinbvirgh, ISOl. 



