30 REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1901 



give a good picture of this, and are well worth quoting 

 here: — "I was not sufficiently aware," he says (writing sixty 

 years ago), "during my previous visits, how very much the 

 birds add to the rock scenery of the island. The gannet 

 measures from wing-tip to wing-tip full six feet ; the great 

 black gull, five ; the blue, or herring gull, about four feet 

 nine inches ; and flying at all heights along the precipices 

 — this one so immediately overhead that its shadow darkens 

 half the yawl below — that other well-nigh 400 feet in the 

 air — they were by their gradations of size (when seen from 

 the boat) as objects to measure the altitudes by. And these 

 altitudes appear considerably less when they are away." 



We, looking down, had the same scale-indicators as Hugh 

 Miller had, looking up. 



The plates which illustrate the gannet we owe to Mr William 

 Green of Berwick, who took in person, on the Bass Rock, 

 the original photographs in 1882, and has been good enough 

 to put them at the disposal of the Club, with the following 

 remark: — 



"It may be interesting to know that the egg shown in 

 Plate VI. was chipping when photographed on 8th June ; 

 and the young bird in Plate VII. was the produce of that 

 egg^ photographed on 27th July : the age of this bird was 

 therefore seven weeks." 



The name Solan Goose is not altogether happy, inasmuch 

 as the bird is not a goose; and, moreover, the word " Solan" 

 is of doubtful meaning. Three etymologies may be quoted for 

 it, (1) Greek, (2) Icelandic, (3) geographical: the first connects 

 it with the Greek verb sulao, I plunder, because of the 

 predatory nature of the bird ; the second gives sula as the 

 Icelandic name of the gannet (as it is the Latin name given 

 to it in Natural History books) ; the third traces it through 

 the form Soland, as it is sometimes spelt, to Solent, and goes 

 back to a time when these birds crowded the waters of the 

 Hampshire coast. 



The name "Gannet" is more used by Cornish and Irish 

 fishermen, it is said, than "Solan Goose"; and this name 

 is traced from the Anglo-Saxon " ganot." Here again we 

 come perilously near to the German " gans " and our own 



