THE GANNET. 219 
naturalists who wish to acquire more information on 
the internal economy of air-inflated birds. 
In our account of the dismal tempests that so 
often prove fatal to the starving Cormorants, we 
might have added, that in the way of the Gannet 
they throw no impediment ; buoyant as a bladder, 
no sea can overwhelm him ; there he floats, if so it 
pleases him, lighter than a cork, on the summit of 
the most angry waves, without let or hinderance. On 
their airy, spreading pinions, too, they can, in case of 
disappointment in one place, transport themselves in 
an incredibly short time, to another. The inhabit- 
ants of St. Kilda assert, that they occasionally go a 
hundred miles or more for the purpose of fishing ; a 
fact, they say, proved by finding in their nests hooks 
of English manufacture, sticking in fish-bones*. 
Their nests are usually placed on the ledges of 
apparently inaccessible rocks, in which two eggs 
only are, for the most part, laid ; but, breeding as 
they do, on so many of the desolate rocks of the 
northern shores, the number produced is incredible, 
and in many parts becomes a source of considerable 
profit to those who catch them. Thus, Mr. Landt, 
in his account of some islands near the Ferroes, says, 
u The old ones are caught in the middle of April, 
when they have built their nests, but before they 
have laid their eggs. The peasants steal upon them 
in the night-time, or when it is dark, in the places 
where they sit and sleep, and seize them by griping 
them in a peculiar manner, which prevents them 
from emitting any cry; for if they are suffered to 
make a noise, all the rest would awaken and take 
* Martin’s Kilda . 
