454 NATATORES. SULA. 
angle rather prominent, gently ascending to the tip. Chin 
angle narrow and long, filled with a naked dilatable skin. 
Face naked. ‘Tomia intracted, obliquely and unequally 
serrated. Nostrils basal; concealed from view. 'Tongue 
very small. 
Wings long and acuminate. ‘Tail graduated. 
Legs abdominal; tarsi short; feet of four toes, all con- 
nected by a membrane ; the middle and outer toes of nearly 
equal length. Middle claw having its imner edge dilated 
and toothed. 
The Gannets are strongly distinguishable from the Cor- 
morants by the shape of the bill, by their lengthened wings 
and lighter form of body, and not less so by the dissimilarity 
of their faculties and habits. For, instead of the natatorial 
and diving qualities possessed by the latter in such perfec- 
tion, and on the constant exercise of which they depend for 
subsistence, the former are never known to dive, and are but 
seldom observed upon the water, where, when they happen 
to alight, they seem rather to float than to use any exertion in 
swimming. They have, on the contrary, a great and un- 
wearied power of flight, and are almost continually upon 
-wing. ‘They prey upon such fish as occasionally swim near 
to the surface of the water, chiefly of the herring genus, and 
upon which they precipitate themselves as they soar in the 
air. During the season of reproduction they collect in large 
bodies, and inhabit the most precipitous rocks that overhang 
the ocean.. They lay but one egg, and the young are nearly 
four years in acquiring maturity, undergoing during that 
period a great annual variation in the colours of the plumage. 
The legs, in this genus, are not placed so far backwards as 
in the preceding one ; they walk, consequently, with the body 
in a horizontal and not in an upright position. ‘The mem- 
bers of the genus are not numerous, and only one inhabits 
Europe, the Solan Gannet (Sula bassana), well known in 
the northern parts of this kingdom as a regular summer 
visitant. 
