CHAPTER IX. 



GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA. 



Gannets in Canada — Jacques Cartier's discovery of their 

 breeding-place — Modem history of the Bird Rocks — of Bon- 

 aventure — Estimated numbers at these places — Great Manan 

 and Perroquet abandoned by Gannets. 



Early History of the Canadian Gannets. — The Gannet 

 of North America was separated by Bonaparte from the 

 European Gannet in 1838, under the name of Sula 

 americana* but this decision has not been upheld 

 by the judgment of modern ornithologists on either 

 side of the Atlantic, and accordingly they are here treated 

 as being the same. Much persecution seems to have been 

 meted out in the past to Canadian Gannets, in part because 

 they were found by the fishermen to be of use for fish-bait, 

 in part from the prevalent idea that where there are many 

 Gannets and other kindred sea-birds, there will be fewer 

 fish for human beings. f So rampant had been the spirit of 



* Sre p. 3. In 1828 he had treated them as the same in " Annals of 

 The Lyceum of Nat. Hist, of New York " (ii., p. 408). 



I A theory already combated in the Introduction, p. 6, 



V 



