AVES—GANNET. 677 
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 
Jate as the reign of Charles I., there was an officer of the hovsehold who 
pore the title of Master of the Cormorants. 
THE GANNET, OR SOLAN GOOSE,! 

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

1 Sula 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 
hasal, linear, and concealed ; legs short, stout, placed far behind; all the toes connected 
hy a web; claw of the middle toe serrated; wings long; tail conical, and composed of 
twelve feathers 
57* 
