CHAPTER XXXIV. 



THE SOLAN GOOSE. 



(Pelecanus Bassanus.) 



" I'm one of those who in Basse Isle, 

 Where Bear did govern longest while, 

 Lost all my eggs and goslings too ; 

 For Bear did make the De'el to do." 



The Dream of the Solan Goose. 



THIS beautiful bird, though not in very high esteem by the modern 

 apician, is extremely curious and interesting in its habits ; and, 

 being familiar to the wild-fowl shooter as a peculiar species of the 

 wild-goose tribe, we are not disposed to pass it over unnoticed. 



Several small islands in the north of Scotland, especially those of 

 the Hebrides, are favourite resorts of these birds during the breeding 

 season. The Bass Rock, at the mouth of the Forth, especially, is 

 notorious as swarming with them.* They range themselves upon 

 the ledges and helds of the rocks, in irregular ranks ; and so, 

 studded from top to bottom, the most inaccessible parts sometimes 

 appear literally alive with solan geese. This rock, which has been 

 alluded to by authors of travel as the " solitary giant of the deep," 

 strikes the beholder with an amazement which he never forgets, 

 as he gazes, for the first time in his life, upon the wild and 

 stupendous scenef not the structure of human hand, but the work 

 of Nature, in one of its grandest and most majestic forms.:}: 



When seen at a distance, in the air, a casual observer would 



* " None of the birds are permanent occupants of the island, but visitors for 

 purposes of procreation only, staying there for a few weeks, in lodgings as it were, 

 and until their young ones can take wing along with them." Harvey on the Gene- 

 ration of Animals : 1651. Vide also " The Bass Eock" and its History j by Pro- 

 fessor Fleming and others. 



t Vide " Eocks and Eivers ;" by John Colquhoun, Esq. 



There is the following amusing reference to solan geese in " The Cosmographe 



