226 COMMON GANNET. 
during one of his visits to the Sea Islands off the shores of South 
Carolina, on the 2d of July 1836, he observed a flock of Gannets 
of from fifty to an hundred, all of the colouring of the one in my plate, 
and which was a bird in its first winter plumage. They were seen 
during several days on and about Cole’s Island, at times on the sands, 
at others among the rolling breakers. He also mentions having heard 
Mr Giuzs, an acquaintance of his, who knows much about birds, say, , 
that in the course of the preceding summer he had seen a pair of Gan- 
nets going to, and returning from, a nest inatree! This is in ac- 
cordance with the report of Captain Narotron CostE, who commanded 
the United States Revenue Cutter, the Campbell, placed at my dispo- 
sal during my visit to the Texas, and who was Lieutenant as well as Pilot 
of the Marion. He stated that he had found a breeding place on the 
coast of Georgia, occupied by a flock of old, and therefore White Gan- 
nets, the nests of all of which were placed upon trees. No one can be 
greatly surprised at these reports, who knows, as I do, that the Brown 
Gannet, Sula fusca, breeds both on trees and on dry elevated sand bars. 
During winter months I have generally observed single birds at some 
considerable distance from the shore out at sea, sometimes indeed be- 
yond what mariners call soundings, but rarely young ones, they generally 
keeping much nearer to the shores, and procuring their food in shallower 
water. 
The flight of the Gannet is powerful, well sustained, and at times 
extremely elegant. While travelling, whether in fine or foul weather, 
they fly low over the surface of the water, flapping their wings thirty 
or forty times in succession, in the manner of the Ibis and the Brown 
Pelican, and then sailing about an equal distance, with the wings at 
right angles to the body, and the neck extended forwards. But, Reader, 
to judge of the elegance of this bird while on wing, I would advise you to 
gaze on it from the deck of any of our packet ships, when her com- 
mander has first communicated the joyful news that you are less than 
three hundred miles from the nearest shore, whether it be that of merry 
England or of my own beloved country. You would then see the power- 
ful fisher, on well-spread pinions, and high over the water, glide 
silently along, surveying each swelling wave below, and coursing with so 
much ease and buoyancy as to tempt you to think that had you been 
furnished with equal powers of flight, you might perform a journey of 
eighty or ninety miles without the slightest fatigue in a single hour. 
But perhaps at the very moment when these thoughts have crossed. 
