62 
for the security of the eyes of so weighty a 
creature, whose method of taking its prey 
is by darting head-long on it from a height 
of a hundred and fifty feet or more into the 
water. About four years ago, one of these 
birds flying over Penzance, (a thing that 
rarely happens) and seeing some pilchards 
lying on a fir plank, in a cellar used for 
curing fish, darted itself down with such 
violence, that it struck its bill quite through 
the board (about an inch and a quarter 
thick) and broke its neck." Pennant adds 
that ec these birds are taken at sea by a 
deception of the like kind. The fishermen 
fasten a pilchard to a board, and leave it 
floating ; which inviting bait decoys the 
unwary Gannet to its own destruction." 
The male and female of this species 
hatch and fish by turns ; the fisher re- 
turns to the nest with five or six herrings 
in its gorget, all entire and undigested, 
which the hatcher pulls out from the throat 
of its provider, and swallows them, 
making at the same time a loud noise. 
Montagu is of opinion that the Gannet 
is incapable of diving ; he found that those 
which he kept alive in his menagerie 
nor"'.? viyi fi. ■&*io i { iii~f' i &> a- *- *ii Jv»H^/^*j*'i!-". ^i'kii^titnp 
