282 WHITE SEA-BIRDS. 



into the sea for surface-swimming fish. When seen 

 at some distance on the wing, it will seem a wholly 

 white bird, with long tail, and long, sharply pointed 

 wings black at the ends. At such times it flies 

 usually about twenty feet above the surface of the 

 sea, holding its own with slowly beating wings 

 against any ordinary wind. Upon espying fish it 

 expends the remaining momentum of flight in a 

 sort of aerial leap, and then descends head foremost 

 with closed wings, splashing into the sea. It reappears 

 almost at once, tossing the fish down its throat as it 

 rises. Though it affects the coast at all times, it may 

 be met far out to sea, in which situation it will 

 often bear down upon a vessel in high, swinging 

 flight, retiring after a close inspection. At other 

 times the bird will skim the waves of a heavy 

 sea with alternate flapping and floating, heading 

 a wind that sends the Gulls to shore. There is no 

 other white British bird of the sea of the Gannet's size, 

 and among the Gulls — birds which, though smaller, 

 are largely white — there is none but has the upper 

 surface of the wings gray, or black, or otherwise 

 coloured. There is, therefore, no bird with which 

 the Gannet can be confounded. 



FULMAR.— Plate 117. 19 inches. Head, neck, 

 and under parts white ; back, tail, and wings light 

 gray, except the longer flight-feathers, which are 

 dusky ; bill, hooked at end, yellow ; legs and feet 

 gray. Resident and winter migrant. 



E^g. — 1, granular in the surface, white, sometimea 



