8 Dr. R. O. Cunningham on the Solan Goose. 
great, the foot hath four toes webbed together. It feeds upon 
mackrel and herring, and the flesh of the young one smells and 
tastes strong of these fish.” The same author also records, in 
the course of his peregrinations in England, that he “ saw 
many of those birds, which they call gannets, flying about on 
the water. This bird hath long legs, and a long neck, and 
flieth strongly. Possibly it may be Catarractes *. He preys 
upon pilchards, the shoals whereof great multitudes of these 
fowls constantly pursue.” Elsewhere we are told that they are 
captured “ by tying a pilchard to a board, and fastening it so 
that the bird may see it, who comes down with so great swift¬ 
ness for his prey, that he breaks his neck against the board.” 
Sir Thomas Browne, in his f Account of Birds found in 
Norfolk ; t> mentions “ A large and strong-billed fowl, called a 
ganet, which seems to be the greater sort of larus; whereof I 
met with one killed by a greyhound, near Swaffham; another 
in Marshland, while it fought, and would not be forced to take 
wing : another entangled in a herring-net, which, taken alive, 
was fed with herrings for a while. It may be named larus 
major , leucophceopterus; as being white and the top of the wings 
brown.” 
The account of the bird given by Willughby, in his f Orni¬ 
thology^, published in 1676, is brief but interesting, inas¬ 
much as the peculiar attachment of the skin to the muscles, in 
consequence of the interposition of air-sacs, is for the first time 
taken notice of. He says, “ the skin is very full, sticking loose 
to the flesh.” Of the habits of the Gannet, as seen at St. Kilda, 
Martin seems to have been about the earliest observer. In his 
interesting little work f A late voyage to St. Kilda, the remotest 
of all the Hebrides of Scotland/ published in 1698, we find the 
following quaint account of its habits :—“ The Solan Geese hatch 
by turns ; when it returns from its fishing, it carries along with it 
five or six herrings in its gorget, all entire and undigested : upon 
whose arrival at the nest, the hatching fowl puts its head in the 
* Ray does not appear to have been aware that the Gannet and Solan 
Goose were the same bird. 
t Sir Thomas Browne’s Works. Wilkin’s edition, vol. iv. p. 314. 
f Book III. Part III. section II. chap. II. (pp. 328, 329). 
