454 NATATORES. SULA. 



angle rather prominent, gently ascending to the tip. Chin 

 angle narrow and long, filled with a naked dilatable skin. 

 Face naked. Tomia intracted, obliquely and unequally 

 serrated. Nostrils basal; concealed from view. Tongue 

 very small. 



Wings long and acuminate. Tail graduated. 



Legs abdominal; tarsi short; feet of four toes, all con- 

 nected by a membrane ; the middle and outer toes of nearly 

 equal length. Middle claw having its inner edge dilated 

 and toothed. 



The Gannets are strongly distinguishable from the Cor- 

 morants by the shape of the bill, by their lengthened wings 

 and lighter form of body, and not less so by the dissimilarity 

 of their faculties and habits. For, instead of the natatorial 

 and diving qualities possessed by the latter in such perfec- 

 tion, and on the constant exercise of which they depend for 

 subsistence, the former are never known to dive, and are but 

 seldom observed upon the water, where, when they happen 

 to alight, they seem rather to float than to use any exertion in 

 swimming. They have, on .he contrary, a great and un- 

 wearied power of flight, and are almost continually upon 

 wing. They prey upon such fish as occasionally swim near 

 to the surface of the water, chiefly of the herring genus, and 

 upon which they precipitate themselves as they soar in the 

 air. During the season of reproduction they collect in large 

 bodies, and inhabit the most precipitous rocks that overhang 

 the ocean. They lay but one egg, and the young are nearly 

 four years in acquiring maturity, undergoing during that 

 period a great annual variation in the colours of the plumage. 

 The legs, in this genus, are not placed so far backwards as 

 in the preceding one ; they walk, consequently, with the body 

 in a horizontal and not in an upright position. The mem- 

 bers of the genus are not numerous, and only one inhabits 

 Europe, the Solan Gannet (Sula bassana), well known in 

 the northern parts of this kingdom as a regular summer 

 visitant. 



