By the Bev. A. C. Smith. 



171 



pure white on its thighs, and a white throat The tail is composed 

 of stiff hard feathers, and is frequently used on laud as a prop to 

 support the body. It is tamed by the Chinese, and trained to 

 take fish, being cast into the water after its finny quarry, much as 

 a falconer will, in hawking, cast off his bird at a heron, or the courser 

 slip his greyhound after a hare : only in the case of the voracious 

 Cormorant it is found necessary to fasten an iron ring round the 

 bird's neck, or the prey would be instantly swallowed. This sport, 

 which is still practised in China, was at one time an English 

 practice, and was in great repute in the sixteenth century : and as 

 there are still the high offices attached to the court of " Master of 

 the Buckhounds," and " Hereditary grand Falconer," so in former 

 days it was no slight honour to be "Master of the Cormorants " 

 to our Sovereign lord king Charles the First. It is a very common 

 bird on all our rocky coasts ; and I have met with colonies of it 

 far up the Nile, at least 450 miles from the sea ; so that fresh water 

 must be as palatable to it as salt, provided only the supply of fish 

 is sufficient. In this county I have an instance of one killed on 

 Mr. Heneage's water at Lyneham, whence the Great Northern 

 Diver was obtained ; and another (as I learned from a paragraph in 

 the newspaper) was killed at Bradford on Avon, in September, 1859. 



" Gannet." (Sulci alba.) Known also as the Solan, Soland, 

 Solent, or Channel Goose, is common enough on our coasts. In 

 general form and in regard to the peculiar structure of foot, it 

 closely resembles the Cormorant, but in habits it widely differs from 

 that bird : for it never dives, is seldom seen on the water, but is 

 almost continually on the wing; indeed its power of flight seems 

 inexhaustible, and being of a light and buoyant nature, and pro- 

 vided with an internal supply of air cells, it can float on unwearied 

 wing without exertion. It is a large bird with an immense expanse 

 of wing, and the adult is of a yellowish white colour with black 

 tips to the wings ; but the immature, known also as the " Spotted 

 Booby," in France as " le Fou tachete," is of a clove brown, spotted 

 with pure white, as if a snow shower had fallen upon it ; and as it 

 takes several years in arriving at maturity, it was for a long time 

 considered a distinct species. In seeking its prey it soars to a great 

 height, and then suddenly darts down upon it with amazing impetus. 



