GANNET. 643 



SULA BASSANA. 

 GANNET. 



(PLATE 34.) 



Sula major, Briss. Orn. vi. p. 497 (1760). 



Sula bassana, Briss. Orn. vi. p. 503 (1760); et auctorum plurimonim (Gmclin), 



(Latham), Temminck, Dresser, Saunders, &c. 

 Pelicanus bassanus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 217 (1766). 

 Pelicanus punctatus, Sparrrn. Mus. Carls, pi. x. (1786). 

 Pelicanus maculatus, Omcl. Syst. Nat. i. p. 679 (1788). 

 Sula alba, Mayer } Taschenb. ii. p. 582 (1810). 

 Dysporus bassanus (Linn.), llliger, Prodromtts, p. 280 (1811). 

 Moris bassanus (Linn.), Leach, Si/st. Cat. Mamm. $c. Brit. Mus. p. 35 (1816). 

 Sula americana, Bonap. Comp. List B. Eur. and N. Amer. p. 60 (1838). 

 Sula lefevri, Baldamus, Naumannia, 1851, pt. iv. p. 38. 



The Gannet is a resident throughout the British Islands, but is confined 

 to very few breeding- colonies. By far the largest of these (estimated at 

 150,000 pairs) is situated on Sula S'Geir (erroneously marked North Barra 

 in some maps, but Sulisker in the Admiralty chart), a rock about five-and- 

 thirty miles due north of the Butt of Lewis. Halfway between this rock 

 and the Orkneys is an offshoot of this colony (estimated at 25,000 pairs) 

 on Stack Island, or the Stack of Suliskerry. To the west is a colony (esti- 

 mated at 25,000 pairs) on the island of Borrera, and some of the adjacent 

 stacks, in the St.-Kilda group. Only two other breeding-places of the 

 Gannet near the Scotch coast are known the celebrated Ailsa Craig at 

 the mouth of the Firth of Clyde on the west coast, and the still more 

 celebrated Bass Rock at the mouth of the Firth of Forth on the east coast. 

 The number of pairs breeding at the two latter localities is estimated at 

 6000 each. England can boast of only one small colony on Lundy Island, 

 with a still smaller offshoot on an island off the coast of Pembrokeshire. 

 Ireland also possesses only one colony (estimated at 1000 pairs), having 

 its headquarters on the Bull Rock in the extreme south-west, with a 

 small adjunct on the adjacent Cow Rock, and another on the more distant 

 Little Skellig. 



The Gannet is an oceanic species, and is only known to breed on a few 

 islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. There is a colony on the Grand 

 Menan rock in the Bay of Fundy, and another on Magdalene Island and 

 the adjoining rocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is only an accidental 

 straggler to Greenland ; but there are several colonies near the coasts of 



