quoted some lines from Hudibras, in which we are told that : 
“ From the most refined of saints 
As naturally grow miscreants 
As Barnacles turn Solan Geese 
In the islands of the Orcades.” 
It was the 7tli of March, and I was lucky enough to be the first 
visitor of the season. There had not been a soul on the rocks for 
months, and the birds, though they had not yet began to lay, were 
tame. My guide expressed himself vastly surprised that there was 
not an egg to be seen yet, and declared that his birds were later 
than usual. One is the normal complement, but he had once seen 
an old gannet sit on two, and that bird reared juvenile gannets out 
of both of them.* He told me, and I found it was the general 
opinion of many people, that the gannet incubated the egg with 
the sole of her foot, and had thus got for herself the name of 
Solan (sole on). I burst out laughing at this novel derivation, but 
it seems the belief is as old as the middle of the sixteenth century 
(see ‘Gesneri Tigurini Hist. Animalium,’ Lib. iii. , p. 158),+ and 
lias been variously* referred to with approval since that time. 
All the nests which I examined were of seaweed, mixed with 
grass, and a few were lined with straw. Hone had sticks. The 
seaweed and the straw they find floating on the water, but they 
obtain the grass off the rock itself ; and near to the summit there 
may be seen many a hole in the turf which these strong-billed 
birds have dug. The gannet is a bit of a curiosity hunter and 
strange things are sometimes found by the climbers. I heard of 
butterscoops, india-rubber shoes, children’s whips, baskets, etc. ! 
One gannet of a very aspiring turn of mind, carried up a basket 
big enough to hold five beer-bottles ; and as she could not pull it to 
pieces, she made her nest in it, where she sat, enthroned as a 
queen, to the envy of all the other gannets. The young gannets 
when hatched, arc very ugly. When they get older they become 
bales of white wadding. They get to a large size before the black 
feathers, tipped with white, are seen cropping up ; then the soft 
warm down is not wanted any longer, and the plumage of the 
* It is not so rare for a gannet to lay two eggs, as I supposed (see Macg., 
B B. v., p. 412) ; but also see Mr. Gray’s comments (B. of Scot., p. 461). 
t For a knowledge of the above I am indebted to Professor Newton. 
