260 THE GANNET 



to Myggenses, the same island where they now breed. 

 These old legends go back a long way, sometimes even to 

 the fourteenth century, and this one indicates a high 

 antiquity for this comparatively small Gannet settlement. 

 Passing over this early record, — and also Charles Clusius' 

 young Gannet in 1604,* as it is not clear whether it was 

 taken here or in Norway, — the first author to be quoted is 

 Lucas Debes. 



1. In his " Description of Fseroe," Lucas Debes, after 

 describing sundry geese, turns to the fowl " principally 

 worth taking notice of ; it is called Sule, and is found no- 

 where in Feroe, but on the Islet or [? of] Myggoness-f [i.e., the 

 horn] whereof the Inhabitants have yearly a great help to 

 their house-keeping, they rehearse a strange Fable of the 

 reason wherefore that Fowl is only found there, and nowhere 

 else, whereof we will speak in another place [see p. 183]. 

 The Sule is a pretty great Fowl being of a blueish grey, it 

 is also found in Scotland, and is called by Seamen, a Gentle- 

 man." Debes must be here referring to the young in the 



* See p. 17. 



■\ Mr. Eirikr Magnusson, whose help I gladly acknowledge, is of opinion 

 that the old form of this word must have been mykines, i.e., muckness= 

 guanoness [niyki=muck], the modern Faroese name being mikjines, 

 meaning the same, and that the myki-guano must be taken to be Gannet 

 guano, but there is no evidence that this guano was ever collected for 

 agricultiu-al purposes. 



