496 THE GANNET 



Nitzsch. Having found this impossible, I obtained another 

 specimen, and by the advice of Mr. W. P. Pycraft cut all 

 its feathers off very close with scissors, and then, with the 

 help of spirit of wine, endeavoured to remove the down. 

 This plan answered better, but the down is so dense that 

 the best plan is really to skin the bird and trace out the 

 feather- tracts on the interior of the skin, and not on its 

 exterior. This being done, and the Gannet being now 

 turned inside out, it was at once apparent that the feathers 

 sprang from every part of the neck, and that the head also 

 was completely clothed with small feathers. In the same 

 way the whole of the under side of the body was covered, 

 with the exception of a line down the middle contiguous to 

 the keel of the breast-bone, and continuing uninterruptedly 

 to the vent. 



Nitzsch's figure gives a bare space on the upper part 

 of the back, between the scapulars, short, rather broad, and 

 oval in shape, to which he assigns generic value. In one 

 of my subjects, however, this interscapulary space, which 

 lies in the middle of the spinal tract, was very ill-defined, 

 and not entirely devoid of feathers, so perhaps too much 

 stress has been laid upon it by Nitzsch. 



Again, Nitzsch's figures present a narrow strip of bare 

 skin between the thighs and the sides of the belly. I am 

 not sure if this narrow space was feathered in the first 



