256 THE GANNET 



in the "History of British Birds" (V., p. 412), but 

 does not enter into many particulars. There is no 

 more faithful history of the Gannet than that in the 

 fifth volume of Macgillivray's " British Birds," and it is 

 pathetic to remember that within five weeks of the publi- 

 cation of this, his final volume, the author died.* Among 

 other naturalists who are known to have been to the 

 Bass were Thomas Pennant on July 18th, 1769, William 

 Bullock — who has left us his journal, and one of whose 

 Gannets, a 2nd year bird, greatly faded, is still at The 

 Natural History Museum — Arthur Strickland in [May ?] 

 1807, Sir William Jardine in 1816 and 1820, P. J. Selby 

 about the year 1825, and John Wolley in the years 1848, 

 1850, and 1851 (" Ootheca Wolleyana," II., p. 453),— all 

 of them naturalists eminent for their attainments. An 

 extract is here given from William Bullock's journal : — 



" In the spring of 1807," he says, " I visited this celebrated 

 rock (once the State prison of Scotland), accompanied by 

 Arthur Strickland, Esq., of York, for the purpose of 

 procuring specimens of the various water-fowl that annually 

 resort to it at that season of the year for security during 

 the important business of rearing their young. We arrived 

 under the towering and tremendous projecting cliffs of the 



* On September 8th, 1852, his wife predeceasing him by seven months 

 and his friend Audubon by thirteen months. 



