THE SOLAN GOOSE. 
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and readily becoming tame and attached to its keepers, yet 
it delights in gorging and gluttony, which gives it a some- 
•what dark and sinister character in the eyes of the poets. 
So Grahame, in his * Birds of Scotland,' describes it as a 
sea-scavenger. 
On distant waves, the raven of the sea, 
The Cormorant, devours her carrion food. 
Along the blood-stained coast of Senegal, 
Prowling, she scents the cassia-perfumed breeze 
Tainted with death, and, keener, forward flies : 
The towering sails, that waft the house of woe, 
Afar she views ; upon the heavy hulk, 
Deep logged with wretchedness, full fast she gains : 
(Eevolting sight ! the flag of freedom waves 
Above the stern-emblazoned words, that tell 
The amount of crimes which Britain's boasted laws 
Within the narrow wooden walls permit !) 
And now she nighs the carnage-freighted keel, 
Unscared by rattling fetters, or the sliriek 
Of mothers, o'er their ocean-buried babes. 
Lured by the scent, imweariedly she flies, 
And at the foamy dimples of the track, 
Darts sportively, or perches on a corpse. 
GANNET. 
The Common Gannet {Sula hassana)^ often called the 
Solan Goose, represents with us the Gannets (genus 
Sula) J birds essentially organised like the Cormorants, yet 
