No. 54.] BIRD FAMES. jgf 



era Point, CHUCKATUCK ; and at St. Augustine, Fla. (to some na- 

 tive gunners at least), SALT-WATER PARTRIDGE. 



Yarrell tells of its being known in Dorsetshire, England, as; 

 the VARIEGATED PLOVER ; and the following name* appear 

 in Swainson's Provincial Names of British Birds, 1885 : STANE- 

 PECKER (Shetland Isles) : SKIRL CRAKE (East Lothian, Shet- 

 land Isles): TANGLE PICKER (Norfolk) " tangle is a kind of 

 weed beset with small bladders" (Gfumey): STONE RAW (Ar- 

 magh) : SEA LARK (Ireland) and in the same work under 

 Sanderling, C. arenaria, we find again " Sea Lark (Ireland)." 



Our Common Gannet (S. 6aana), known also as White Gannet, Solan Goose, 

 etc., measures about three feet in length. Under the head of Royal Tern 

 (Sterna maxima), in Notes on Birds found Breeding on Cobb's Island, Va. 

 (Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, April, 1876), Mr. Bailey says, " called Gannets by the 

 natives;" and Audubon writes as follows concerning the Wood Ibis (Tantalu* 

 loculator) : " The Spaniards of East Florida know them by the name of ' Gan- 

 nets.' ... At St. Augustine I was induced to take an excursion to visit a 

 large pond or lake, where I was assured there were Gannets in abundance, 

 which I might shoot off the trees provided I was careful enough. On asking 

 the appearance of the Gannets, I was told that they were large white birds, 

 with wings black at the end, a long neck, and a large sharp bill. The de- 

 scription so far agreeing with that of the Common Gannet or Solan Goose, I 

 proposed no questions respecting the legs or tail, but went off. Twenty-three 

 miles, reader, I trudged through the woods, and at last came in view of the 

 pond ; when lo ! its borders and the trees around it were covered with Wood 

 Ibises. Now, as the good people who gave the information spoke according 

 to their knowledge, and agreeably to their custom of calling the Ibises Gan- 

 nets, had I not gone to the pond I might have written this day that Gannets 

 are found in the interior of the woods in the Floridas, that they alight on trees, 

 etc., which if onpc published, would in all probability have gone down to future 

 times through the medium of compilers, and all perhaps without acknowledg- 

 ment" 



