518 THE GANNET 



proposed arrangement. Thus a Gannet's feet at once lead 

 us to place it among the Steganopodes. The members of 

 this order may be diagnosed by one external character 

 alone, viz. their feet, which are totipalmate — that is, all 

 the toes, including the hallux, are united by a web. 



It cannot be said that anything like a complete anatomy 

 of the Gannet has yet been published, and even now to 

 do justice to half its details would require far more 

 knowledge than lies at my disposal at the present time. 

 Nevertheless there are a good many important contri- 

 butions to be found scattered in the writings of Montagu 

 (1811), Nitzsch (1825-40), Owen (1830), Macgillivray 

 (1852), Garrod (1873-6), Max Fiirbringer (1888-91), 

 Maynard (1889), Gadow, and F. E. Beddard, on which 

 I have drawn considerably for information, and which 

 will be invaluable to whoever hereafter takes up the 

 task fully. Let us first consider the air-sacs, which are 

 exceedingly curious. 



The Air-sacs or Cells of Gannets. — Air-sacs are a very 

 curious part of a bird's body, or rather they are the vacuities 

 without which a bird's body would not be complete. In 

 few species are they so developed as in the Gannet, and in 

 fewer still do they envelop the body beneath the skin, as 

 in that species. In addition there are certain internal cells, 

 which are all that many birds have. Learned brains 



