294 GANNET CORVORANT. Class II, 



" Chandour, near Mount-bay, Sept. 30, 1762, 

 " after a long struggle with a water spaniel, 

 " assisted by the boatmen ; for it was strong 

 " and pugnacious. The person who took it 

 *' observed that it had a transparent membrane 

 " under the eye-lid, with which it covered at 

 " pleasure the whole eye, without obscuring 

 " the sight or shutting the eye-lid ; a gracious 

 *' provision for the security of the eyes of so 

 " weighty a creature, whose method of taking 

 " its prey is by darting headlong on it from a 

 ' . " height of a hundred and fifty feet or more 



" into the water. About four years ago, one 

 *' of these birds flying over Penzance, (a thing 

 " that rarely happens) and seeing some pil- 

 " chards lying on a fir-plank, in a cellar used 

 " for curing fish, darted itself down with such 

 *' violence, that it struck its bill quite through 

 " the board (about an inch and a quarter thick) 

 '• and broke its neck." 



These birds are sometimes taken at sea by a 

 deception of the like kind. The fishermen 

 fasten a pilchard to a board, and leave it float- 

 ing; which inviting bait decoys the unwary 

 Gannet to its own destruction. ; . ■ 



In the Cataracta of Juha^ may be found 



.'y:\- ': /f'.:., * P/mii, lib. X. c. 44. .'.\ .-■j i 



