442 THE GANNET 



resulting from starvation can be called disease, a condition 

 of things very favourable to the development of entozoa.* 

 Nevertheless, Faber, who generally spoke from personal 

 observation, asserts that in Iceland, Gannets were 

 " sometimes attacked by an infectious disease which 

 destroys countless numbers which drift, dead, on to 

 the shore."! 



Gannets are often Picked up Inkmd. — It is well known 

 to naturalists that sea-birds are often picked up inland, 

 generally alive when found, but always reduced to a 

 helpless condition. These mischances most often befall 

 in autumn, and the victims are Little Auks, Storm- 

 Petrels, Gannets, Guillemots or Puffins, more seldom 

 Cormorants, Shearwaters and Divers, but never Gulls. J 

 A common idea is that all such stray birds have been blown 

 inland, but if one marks how Gannets and Guillemots 

 can play with the wind, as if their 23roper sphere was a 

 gale, it is more probable that in most instances they have 

 lost their way in a fog. Be this as it may, Gannets and 

 other sea-birds often, but quite involuntarily, we may be 



* See Report by Mr. D. Robertson, on A Great Mortalitj'' of Sea-fowl in 

 1859 ("Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc," Glasgow, 1858-69, pp. 2, 4). 



f " Prodromus der Islandischen ornith.," 1823 (translation). 



;J; Colonel Feilden, however, has found Gulls alive, but unable to fly 

 after a severe teiTipest. 



