258 
PELECANIDiE. 
element, the ambient air, and if the pursued touch but the sur- 
face of the water, it proves an altar of safety against the as- 
sailant ; but the gannet procures its food not only in another 
element, but, from a great elevation in the air perceives it 
far beneath the surface of the sea, majestically poises itself, and, 
direct as a plummet, shoots into the deep w T ith an impetus that 
forces a jet of water into the air, and leaves behind a circle of 
snowy foam conspicuous from a great distance. The more in- 
telligent fishermen of Belfast Bay always like to see the gannet 
when they are herring-fishing, as they set their nets according 
to the height above the water from which it plunges ; the greater 
the elevation of the bird in the air, the lower in the water the nets 
are sunk. The extreme depth of water in which the gannet can 
see its prey from on high must be somewhat conjectural; but that 
numbers of these birds have been taken in nets at a depth of 
180 feet is fully proven. On this subject I contributed the fol- 
lowing notes to f CharleswortlTs Magazine of Natural History/ in 
January 1838 (vol. ii. p. 19) : — ■ 
Having heard from two friends, who were grouse-shooting in the 
neighbourhood of Ballantrae, that they had seen great numbers of 
gannets lying in a state of decay, in holes on the beach, and that these 
birds had been taken at extraordinary depths in the fishermen’s nets, 
I made particular inquiry on the subject from a worthy resident of my 
acquaintance (postmaster, &c., of the village), and on the 15th of 
November, 1836, received the following reply : — “Gannets are very 
commonly caught about Ballantrae (chiefly in the month of March) 
in the fishermen’s nets, which are generally sunk from nine to twenty, 
but sometimes to the depth of thirty fathoms,* just as the fish, her- 
rings, &c., are lying. They are taken at all these depths, when the 
water is rough as well as smooth, and in both the cod and turbot nets 
(respectively five and seven inches wide in the mesh). Of the greatest 
quantity taken at one time, c John, son of old Alex. Coulter, can make 
oath, that he took ninety -four gannets from one net, at a single haul, 
a few years ago. The net was about sixty fathoms long, a cod-net, 
wrought in a five-inch scale. The birds brought up the net, with its 
* One hundred and eighty feet; there being six feet in a fathom. 
