THE GANNET. 375 





adding, that from the facility of procuring specimens, a close 

 examination of this species is recommended to those naturalists 

 who wish to acquire more information on the internal economy 

 of air-inflated birds. 



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 overwhelm 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, spread- 

 ing 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 occa- 

 sionally 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 apparently 

 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 incred- 

 ible, 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 Faroes, 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 griping them in a pecu- 

 liar 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 catching the various 

 sea-birds that are found upon our shores, we shall, for the pre- 

 sent, take our leave of it, as well as of the two last divisions 

 of this Table, the Phaetons or Tropic-birds (see p. 77), and 

 * Martin's Kilda. 



