MORTALITY AM0NC4 GANNET8 439 



But they are not always to be thus captured, for on one 

 occasion a friend of Mi*. John Laidlaw saw a Gannet 

 pick a haddock in clear water off the line with which 

 he was fishing in thirty-six feet of water, and rise to 

 the surface without getting caught itself. 



Unable to Rise from a Calm Sea. — Gannets have much 

 difficulty in rising from a perfectly calm sea, and this is 

 owing to the length of their wings, which springing from 

 near the centre of the body, impede rather than assist 

 them. Albatroses experience the same disability for the 

 same reason. Mr. O. G. Pike on one occasion fell in with 

 a notable instance of this incapacity of flight.* Happening 

 to be in the vicinity of the Bass Rock, he came across an 

 immense quantity of Gannets floating on the sea, in a dead 

 calm. So perfectly helpless were they, that they could not 

 fly, or make any use of their wings whatever ; and in spite 

 of many futile attempts to rise from the water, only a very 

 small portion of them eventually succeeded in so doing. 

 Another mischance of a peculiar nature, but attributable 

 to the same cause, befell some Gannets at Sennen Cove 

 in Cornwall, on November 23rd, 1894, which I here relate 

 in the words of Mr. W. J. Welch who was present : "A very 

 heavy sea was running, with no wind tospeak of, from E.8.E. 

 For some days there had been many hundreds of Gannets 



♦ "Country Life," May I8th, 1897. 



