COMMON GANNET. 47 



profusion of food with which their parents supply them, regardless in a great 

 measure of their own wants. The pilot further told me that the stench on 

 the summit of the rock was insupportable, covered as it is' during the breed- 

 ing season, and after the first visits of the fishermen, with the remains of 

 carcasses of old and young birds, broken and rotten eggs, excrements, and 

 multitudes of fishes. He added that the Gannets, although cowardly birds, 

 at times stand and await the approach of a man, with open bill, and strike 

 furious and dangerous blows. Let me now, reader, assure you that unless 

 you had seen the sight witnessed by my party and myself that day, you 

 could not form a correct idea of the impression it has to this moment left on 

 my mind. 



The extent of the southward migration of the Gannet, after it has reared 

 its young, is far greater perhaps than has hitherto been supposed. I have 

 frequently seen it on the Gulf of Mexico, in the latter part of autumn and in 

 winter; and a few were met with, in the course of my last expedition, as far 

 as the entrance of the Sabine river into the Gulf. Being entirely a maritime 

 species, it never proceeds inland, unless forced by violent gales, which have 

 produced a few such instances in Nova Scotia and the State of Maine, as 

 well as the Floridas, where I saw one that had been found dead in the woods 

 two days after a furious hurricane. The greater number of the birds of this 

 species seen in these warm latitudes during winter are young of that or the 

 preceding year. My friend John Bachman has informed me that during 

 one of his visits to the Sea Islands off the shores of South Carolina, on the 

 2nd of July, 1836, he observed a flock of Gannets of from fifty to a hun- 

 dred, 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. Giles, an acquaintance of his, who 

 knows much about birds, say, that in the course of the preceding summer 

 he had seen a pair of Gannets going to, and returning from, a nest in a tree! 

 This is in accordance with the report of Captain Napoleon Coste, who 

 commanded the United States revenue cutter Campbell, placed at my 

 disposal during my visit to 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 Gannets, the 

 nests of all of which were placed upon trees. No one can be greatly sur- 

 prised at these reports, who knows, as I do, that the Brown Gannet, Sulci 

 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 beyond what mariners call 



