238 PELICANID^E. 



require the interference of the douaniers ; the most amusing 

 thing was the modest valuation of five francs, which was the 

 price asked for them. 

 Indigenous. 



GENUS CIX. SULA (GANNET). 



SPECIES 228 THE GANNET. 



Sula Bassana. Brisson. 



Fou blanc ou de bassan. Ternm. 



Solan Goose. 



THE GANNET is a species of large size, and rendered attrac- 

 tive by its white plumage. Its appearance upon the coast is 

 always hailed with pleasure and delight both by the fisher- 

 man and the ornithologist, to one bringing an opportunity 

 to study its habits, and to the other an assurance of plenty 

 which invariably accompanies its appearance. Rarely ap- 

 pearing upon the Dublin coast, it is but seldom observed, and 

 those instances occurring to our notice were principally upon 

 the coast line between Malahide and Drogheda. Similar 

 in habits to the Sternidae, like them it breeds in company, 

 and adopts the same method of obtaining food, so that the 

 gannet might be almost characterized as a tern of immense 

 size. 



Found breeding in a single locality upon the Irish coasts, 

 the number of those large birds frequenting the Skellig Rocks 

 during summer must be a grand sight for the ornithologist. 

 Careless in the structure of a nest, a few dried stalks of fuel 

 are rudely placed together, on which the single egg is placed 

 and the young hatched. The flight of the gannet is performed 

 with bold, rapid sweeps of the wing, at a considerable altitude 

 from the water ; and when about to fish it takes several 

 large, semicircular sweeps, the wings apparently motionless 

 and having perceived a fish, even at an immense height above, 

 it poises itself for an instant with a backward motion, and 

 instantly the white body glances through the air and enters 

 the water with such immense force, that the spray, white as 

 the bird which has disappeared, shoots up to a considerable 

 distance : after an interval it emerges, and is in most cases 

 successful in its aquatic foray : some idea of which may be 

 formed from the fact, noticed by Buchanan in his View of the 

 Fishery of Great Britain, that one hundred and five millions 

 of herrings are destroyed annually by the gannets of St. Kilda. 

 Interesting as is the fishing of a single bird to the observer, 



