436 THE GANNET 



firmly wedged in their throats, and have been obhged to 

 use a knife for cutting the spines before the fish could be 

 taken out. Individuals have also been picked up on the 

 water similarly situated.'"* But gurnards are not the only 

 fish which may prove a cause of death to the Gannet. 

 There used to be in the museum at York (but I could not 

 find it when last there) the skull of a Gannet which had been 

 killed by the hard snout of a garfish, the sharp upper 

 mandible of which, passing obliquely through the eye, had 

 entered the brain, f 



Plunging into Boats. — Two or three writers, whose veracity 

 is beyond question, relate anecdotes of Gannets which have 

 precipitated themselves into boats, wherein they detected 

 the shining scales of freshly-caught herrings. I can quite 

 credit these stories, marvellous as they may at first sight 

 seem to be. John MacGillivrayJ tells of a Gannet which 

 actually passed half through the bottom of a boat, and 



*" Birds of the West of Scotland," p. 462. Cormorants occasionally 

 share the same fate ("Field," September 24:th, 1910.) 



I No doubt the same one mentioned in Morris's " British Birds " (VI., 

 p. 80) ; it had flown inland as far as Swainby, and was foimd about 

 twenty miles from the coast. 



X " Edinburgh New Phil. Journal," 1842, p. 00. See also " Travels in the 

 Western Hebrides," by Lane Buchanan (1798), p. 125. While giving 

 credit to John MacGillivTay's informants, I am afraid that Roderic 

 O'Flaherty's assertion that the Gannet " flys through the ships sailes, 

 piercing them with his beak," will hardly pass current ("West or H — 

 lar Connaught," 1084, p. 12). 



