254 
PELECANIDiE. 
THE GANNET. 
Solan Goose. 
Sula Bass ana, Briss. 
B elec anus Bass anus, Linn. 
Anser „ Bay. 
Sula alba, Meyer and Wolf. 
May be seen on most parts of the coast in summer and 
autumn : — it breeds on one of the Skellig islands. 
Considering that there is only this one breeding-liaunt on the 
coast, it is singular that gannets should even in summer be spread 
as they are around the entire island ; — as personal observation 
and communications from the north, east, south, and west attest 
them to be. Herrings are generally considered to be their chief 
attraction, and when they are “ on the coast ” the birds are 
believed to be most numerous. When anywhere about the 
northern coast of Down, and along that of Antrim, at the more 
genial season of the year, the gannet has almost daily come under 
my observation ; and several were always in sight from the boat 
as we proceeded from Douaghadee to the Copeland Islands. On 
June the 13th, 1832, it was noted that from five till six o'clock 
in the morning we saw many gannets on wing when on our way to 
the Mew Island, one of the three bearing the former name : — - 
several alighted one after the other on the water until they formed 
a small flock, when they continued swimming together. They all 
descended in a very oblique line (about seventy-five degrees), and 
not perpendicularly, as they usually do when fishing. Although 
beautiful sight, a flock consisting of from two to three hundred of these birds, which 
he saw about the 10th of September, 1840, flying southward in the vicinity of 
Smyrna : the form of the flock varied much, being sometimes crescentic, at others 
a straight line, &c. 
In the Surrey Zoological Garden I once (April 1834) remarked five of these birds 
engaged for some time going partially under water in concert, after the manner of 
tame swans. 
