THE BASS ROCK 185 



9. The next author in order of date who alludes to the 

 birds on the Bass is Conrad Gesner, who in his " Historia 

 Animalium," liber. III., p. 158 (1555), is the first to figure 

 the Gannet.* It is not necessary to give the original in the 

 Latin. t After first quoting from William Turner, with whom 

 as Professor Newton has pointed out, Gesner had a personal 

 acquaintance, he continues : — 



TRANSLATION. 



" I lately received from a learned Scot [some of] those 

 Geese called Solandgeese which are longer than tame ones 

 but not so broad : they lay their eggs on rocks : and with 

 one foot placed upon them (whence perchance the name 

 from solea, that is, the sole of the foot, and the Germans also 

 so name them) at length hatch them. Plenty of them are 

 taken at the island Bass near the river Forth, which flows by 

 Edinburgh in Scotland : nor are they found anywhere 

 else. They go far, even six miles from the shore. It is 

 their nature that when they see a fresh fish they throw up 

 a former one [which they have taken], and this they do 

 very often, and carry the last to their young. Moreover, 

 so many fishes do they throw up that those who form the 

 garrison of the fortress collect the ejected fishes for food. 



* See p. 29. 



t I learn from Mr. W. H. Mullens tliat the Gannet is also included and 

 figvH'ed in Gesner's " leones Avium Omnium," with the legend " Anser 

 Bassanus \el Scoticus, axis marina." 



