96 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



beautiful mode in which they take their prey I have 

 described in the ' Field,' in October, 1860. Stanley 

 explains it thus : " The power which this bird 

 possesses of inflating its skin with air induces a 

 buoyancy which entirely prevents its diving after fish, 

 Nature, therefore, has provided a remedy by giving an 

 extraordinary force and rapidity of flight, in enabling the 

 creature to dart down upon a shoal from a great height. 

 This velocity is so prodigious that the force with which 

 it strikes the surface of the water is sufficient to stun a 

 bird not prepared for such a blow, or to force the water 

 up its nostrils. But the gannet has nothing to fear 

 from either of these causes, the front of its head being 

 covered with a sort of horny mask, which gives it a 

 singularly wild appearance ; and it has no nostrils 

 a deficiency amply remedied by the above-mentioned 

 reservoirs of air and capacity for keeping them always 

 filled. Some notion may be formed of the rapidity of 

 their descent by a curious mode of taking them occa- 

 sionally practised by the fishermen in the north. A 

 board is turned adrift, on which a dead fish is fastened : 

 on seeing it the gannet pounces down, and is frequently 

 killed or stunned by striking the board, or is secured 

 by its sharp-pointed beak being actually driven into the 

 wood like a nail, and holding it fast." 



The gannets found in Orkney in summer probably 

 all breed at Suliskerry, called by the Orcadians the 

 " Stack and Skerry," forty miles due west of Strom- 



