PELICAN. 435 



It is an unusually voracious bird, not caring to eat any thing worse 

 than herrings or mackerel, unless it chances to be in a very hungry 

 place, which it endeavours to avoid or abandon ; 100,000 of them 

 are supposed to be round the rocks of St. Kilda, which is far too 

 moderate, as 20,000 of them are killed annually for food, including 

 the young ones; and we shall suppose that the Soland Goose 

 sojourns in these seas for about seven months in the year, and that 

 each of them destroys five herrings in a day, a subsistence by no 

 means adequate to so greedy a creature, unless more than half sup- 

 ported by other fish. Here we have 105,000,000 of the finest fishes 

 in the world devoured every year by one Species of St. Kilda Birds.** 

 During the winter they are frequently found off the coast of Corn- 

 wall, and are seen in every part of the British and Irish Channel, 

 but generally keep far out at sea. One was shot in February, 1781, 

 near Sandwich, in Kent,f and another in January, 1791, on the 

 coast of Sussex, J but in both places considered as a rare bird ; one 

 was also killed in the winter of 1794, not far from Romsey, in 

 Hants, by a man with a stick, as it was fast asleep at the edge of 

 the river. Mr. Martin informed me, that he had some reason to 

 think the Gannet may sometimes breed near Teignmouth, as he has 

 seen it there in summer. 



This race seems to be constant in pursuit after herrings and 

 pilchards, whose motions it watches, and the fishermen know the 

 coming of the fish by the appearance of the birds. That this is the 

 inducement seems probable, as they are likewise seen in December 

 as far south as the coasts of Lisbon and Gibraltar, plunging for 

 Sardinae || The Gannet is also common on the coasts of Norway and 

 Ireland, and now and then on the southern coasts of Greenland, but 

 is rather a rare bird, and never known to breed there. In America 



* See Buchanan's View of the Fishery of Great Britain. 

 t Communicated by Mr. Boys. ,£ Linn. Trans, ii. p. 353. 



|| Clupea Sprattus, our Sprat, according to some ; but it is more probably a fish 

 resembling, if not a small variety of, our Pilchard.— Br. Zool. 



Kkk2 



