424 THE GANNET. 



In our account of the dismal tempests that so often 

 prove fatal to the starving Cormorants, we might have 

 added, that in the way of the Gannet they throw no 

 impediment ; buoyant as a bladder, no sea can over- 

 whelm him ; there he floats, if so it pleases him, lighter 

 than a cork, on the summit of the most angry waves, 

 without let or hindrance. On their airy, spreading 

 pinions too, they can, in case of disappointment in one 

 place, transport themselves in an incredibly short time, 

 to another. The inhabitants of St. Kilda assert, that 

 they occasionally go a hundred miles or more for the 

 purpose of fishing; a fact, they say, proved by finding 

 in their nests, hooks of English manufacture, sticking in 

 fish bones*. 



Their nests are usually placed on the ledges of appa- 

 rently inaccessible rocks, in which two eggs only are, 

 for the most part, laid ; but, breeding as they do, on so 

 many of the desolate rocks of the northern shores, the 

 number produced is incredible, and in many parts 

 becomes a source of considerable profit to those who 

 catch them. Thus, Mr. Landt, in his account of some 

 islands near the Feroes, says, " The old ones are caught 

 in the middle of April, when they have built their nests, 

 but before they have laid their eggs. The peasants steal 

 upon them in the night-time, or when it is dark, in the 

 places where they sit and sleep, and seize them by grip- 

 ing them in a peculiar manner, which prevents them 

 from emitting any cry; for if they are suffered to make 

 a noise, all the rest would awaken and take themselves 

 to flight. In the course of a season, those who are 

 successful will catch, of old and young ones, about four 

 hundred brace." 



As we shall have occasion to speak of the Gannet 

 again, in giving' a general account of the modes of catch- 

 ing the various sea-birds that are found upon our shores, 

 we shall, for the present, take our leave of it, as well as 

 of the two last divisions of this Table, the Phaetons (see 



* MARTIN'S Kilda. 



