262 Wild Ducks, Water- Birds, Sea- Fowl. 



GANNET. 



domesticated variety is very striking in not a few 

 respects. 



Besides those already named, there are gannets or 

 solan geese, with their strange cry, and their fond- 

 ness for the herrings, 

 so great, indeed, that 

 in the season they 

 live entirely on her- 

 rings, and, it is said, 

 take for their share of 

 the shoals more than 

 does the whole fishing 

 fleet of Scotland. The 

 plan of the gannet in 

 catching its prey is 

 verypeculiar. It notes 

 where the fish are, and the depth at which they are 

 swimming, then flies up to what it considers the height 

 needed to give it impetus in diving to the exact point 

 in the water. It has been a subject of dispute whether 

 the bird was named from the Solent or gave the name 

 to the Solent.* The guillemots, too, who are so faith- 

 ful to their young that they will suffer themselves to 

 be seized rather than leave the nest. Cormorants, too, 

 may often be seen, dark and striking figures, among 

 the gulls. The cormorant is to this day, in China and 

 Japan, trained to catch fish. The custom is to pass a 

 leather band round the neck of the bird, so that it 



* Though known also as solan geese, the gannets do not scientifically 

 belong to the anseres or goose family at all, but are grouped along with 

 the cormorants in a separate class, the Pelecanida, and the name of the 

 species is Sttla bassana. It is the more surprising, therefore, that Mr. 

 John Burroughs, in his excellent series of essays, ''Fresh Fields," should 

 write of the gannets and solan geese ; for solan here he must mean 

 lag geese, brent geese, or bean geese. 



