GANNETS AS FOOD 465 



Use made of the Grease. — Since very early times the 

 Gannets on the Bass Rock have been still further turned 

 to account for their fat, of which they jDOssess a great 

 quantity, and which can be easily boiled down into the 

 consistence of oil. In the sixteenth century Gannets' fat 

 was thought to possess extraordinary healing qualities, 

 and was used in the preparation of drugs intended for 

 the cure of gout and catarrh. Almost our first knowledge 

 of the sea-birds on the Bass Rock, is a claim put forward 

 in 1493 against the then owner for sundry barrels of its 

 Gannets' grease — lyiiiguedinis auium silvestrum as the ancient 

 commission (still preserved at Edinburgh) has it.* The 

 matter must have been considered of prime importance, 

 for it was referred to no less an arbitration than that 

 of the Pope of Rome. Then after a lapse of fifty years, 

 we have the encomiums passed by Dean Turner in 1544 

 on Gannets' grease, which he terms a salve most valuable 

 for many a disease : but this and Hector Boece's testimony 

 have been already cj^uoted at length, and need not be 

 repeated.! 



In " Ein Mittelenglisches Medizin Buch," a collection 

 of doctors' receipts, principally taken from MSS. of the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Gannets' grease is classed 



* p. 171. 



f pp. 180, 183. 



G Q 



