28 THE GANNET 



waves; a spectacle which inspired the scribe of the 

 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to write of the sea as 'ganotes 

 teeth ' the gannet's bath. Their mode of life seems the 

 very ideal of freedom and excitement ; but the muscular 

 exertion must be tremendous, for the hunting range of 

 these birds extends from the Baltic to Madeira, and from 

 Greenland to the Gulf of Mexico. Moreover, the effort of 

 rising from the water into the air after each descent is 

 very great, although this seems to be facilitated by a 

 peculiar adaptation of structure, in the shape of air cells 

 under the skin of most parts of the bird's body, which can 

 be inflated and deflated at will. It is well understood 

 that it is the weight of a bird's body, and not its buoy- 

 ancy, that is the essential factor in normal flight or 

 soaring, acting like the string of a kite upon the wing 

 expanse ; but in the act of rising from the water, it is a 

 great help to make oneself temporarily light. 



I have heard fishermen grumbling against what they 

 consider grandmotherly legislation for the protection of 

 gannets. They apprehend a rapid increase in the number 

 of them, and corresponding inroads upon the herring 

 shoals. Certainly it is undesirable that these rapacious 

 birds should multiply out of measure ; but the ocean is 

 wide, and the reproduction of gannets is very slow com- 

 pared with that of other fowls. Each pair lays only a 

 solitary egg each year ; but to compensate for this Mal- 

 thusian provision, the duration of life is much greater 

 than in most birds. Yarrell quotes Selby as having been 

 informed by the keeper on the Bass Rock that he could 

 recognise individual birds by conspicuous marks, and had 

 known some of them for upwards of forty years. Young 

 birds do not attain adult plumage until their third or 



