ORGANS OF BREATHING. 
53 
ments have confirmed the fact; the fractured portion of a 
hone that had been separated, when immersed in soap-and- 
water, was observed to emit bubbles from the part nearest 
the body, proving, beyond a doubt, that it contained air in 
considerable quantities. 
The quills of the feathers are also air-vessels, which can 
be emptied and filled at pleasure. 
There is a bird called the Gannet, or Solan-Goose, which 
is a beautiful instance of this wonderful provision; it lives 
on fish, and passes the greater part of its time either in the 
air or on the water, even in the most tempestuous weather, 
when it may be seen floating like a cork on the wildest 
w'aves. To enable it to do so with the least possible incon- 
venience, it is provided with a greater power of filling and 
puffing itself with air than almost any other bird. It can 
even force air between its skin and its body, to such a degree, 
that it becomes nearly as light and buoyant as a bladder. 
This buoyancy, however, entirely prevents its diving after 
fish: Nature, therefore, has applied a remedy by giving an 
extraordinary force and rapidity of flight, in enabling the 
creature to dart down on a shoal from a great height. This 
velocity is so prodigious, that the force with which it strikes 
the surface of the water is sufficient to stun a bird not pre^ 
pared for such a blow, or to force the water up the nostrils. 
But the Gannet has nothing to fear from either of these 
causes, the front of its head being covered with a sort of 
horny mask, which gives it a singularly wild appearance; 
and it has no nostrils, a deficiency amply remedied by the 
above-mentioned reservoirs of air, and capacity for keeping 
them always filled. Some notion may be formed of the 
rapidity of their descent by a curious mode of taking them, 
occasionally practised by the fishermen in the North. A 
board is turned adrift, on which a dead fish is fastened. On 
seeing it, the Gannet pounces down, and is frequently killed 
or stunned by striking the board, or is secured by its sharp - 
pointed heak being actually driven into the wood like a nail, 
and holding it fast. 
