AVES-GANNET. 



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found their prey, they seize it with their beak by the middle, and carry it 

 without fail to their master. When the fish is too large, they then give 

 each other mutual assistance ; one seizes it by the head, the other by the 

 tail, and in this manner carry it to the boat together. They have always, 

 while they fish, a string fastened round their throats, to prevent them from 

 devouring their prey." Such was formerly the practice in England ; and as 

 late as the reign of Charles I., there was an officer of the household Avho 

 bore the title of Master of the Cormorants. 



THE GANNET, OR SOLAN GOOSE, i 



Is of the size of a tame goose, but its wings much longer, being six feet 

 over. The bill is six inches long, straight almost to the point. It differs 

 from the corvorant in size, being larger ; in its color, which is chiefly dirty 

 white, with a cinereous tinge ; and by its having no nostrils, but in their 

 place a long furrow that reaches almost to the end of the bill. From the 

 corner of the mouth is a narrow slip of black bare skin, that extends to the 

 hind part of the head ; beneath the skin is anoiher that, like the pouch of 

 the pelican, is dilatable, and of size sufficient to contain five or six entire 

 herrings, which in the breeding season it carries at once to its mate or its 

 young. 



These birds, which subsist entirely upon fish, chiefly resort to those unin- 

 habited islands where their food is found in plenty, and men seldom come 

 to disturb them. The islands to the north of Scotland, the Skelig islands 

 off the coasts of Kerry, in Ireland, and those that lie in the North sea oft' 

 Norway, abound with them. But it is on the Bass island, in the firth of 



1 Sala alba, Meyer. The genus Sula has the bill long, stout, in the form of an elon- 

 gated cone, very thick at the base, compressed towards the tip, which is obliquely curved ; 

 cleft beyond the eyes ; edges of both mandibles serrated ; face and throat naked ; nostrils 

 basal, linear, and concealed ; legs short, stout, placed far behind ; all the toes connected 

 by a web; claw of the middle toe serrated; wings long ; tail conical, and composed of 

 twelve feathers. 



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