AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 7 



covered with a white chalky deposit. The greater number of the Gan- 

 nets breed during June. 



HABITS 



Gannets are among the most powerful and active of all the marine 

 birds. Their flight is very swift and accomplished with rapid wing 

 beats or sailing, with equal celerity. As they are coursing about at 

 varying heights their eyes are fixed upon the water below, for their food 

 consists almost wholly of the smaller fish that swim near the surface. 

 When one is sighted in a favorable location, they partially fold their 

 wings, and straight as an arrow dart after their prey. The water is 

 dashed into foam as they plunge head foremost beneath the surface, to 

 reappear almost immediately a few yards away and bearing a shiny fish 

 in their beaks. Sometimes they soar to a great height and wheelround 

 and round, seldom setting on the water, except to sleep. They traverse 

 long distances and often go a great ways from their breeding grounds 

 in search of food. Their wings are long and pointed and both the mus- 

 cles and bones are very strong. Each beat of their wings sends them 

 forward for an astonishing distance. A bird that appears as a mere 

 speck on the horizon will come up, pass on, and disappear in an incred- 

 ibly short time. They are entirely maritime birds and if ever found in- 

 land it is because they have become exhausted and blown out of their 

 course by severe storms. 



Except in the winter when single individuals may be seen along the 

 coast, Gannets are gregarious and nest and fish in great flocks. The 

 only nesting places in America are supposed to be on two or three of 

 the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. At present there 

 are estimated to be about two thousand Gannets in the flock that regu- 

 larly return to these islands. There were formerly a great many more 

 but thousands were killed off by fishermen either out of wantonness or 

 for bait, to be used in their cod-fishing, and thousands more of their 



