284 
STEGANOPODOUS BIRDS. 
six inches in height, is formed of a mass of seaweed and grass placed upon the bare 
rock; and in this is laid a single egg, which is at first chalky white, with a faint 
blue tinge. During incubation, the birds become so tame that they will allow 
themselves to be handled; and it is somewhat curious, that on the ledges of the 
Bass Rock almost all the sitting birds have their heads turned towards the cliff". 
Gannets feed exclusively upon fish, and commit great devastation upon the shoals 
of herrings and pilchards, in search of which they often wander for long distances. 
Couch observes that “ the gannet takes its prey in a different manner from any 
other of our aquatic birds; for, traversing the air in all directions, as soon as it 
discovers the fish, it rises to such a height as experience shows best calculated to 
carry it by a downward motion to the required depth; and then, partially closing 
its wings, it falls perpendicularly on the prey, and rarely without success, the time 
between the plunge and immersion being about fifteen seconds.” The serrated third 
claw of the gannet, like that of the cormorant, appears to be for the purpose of 
dressing the plumage, and not for aiding in the capture of the prey, which is taken 
entirely by means of the beak. 
On many of the islands of the southern seas gannets, or boobies, of various 
species, breed in vast numbers and exhibit remarkable tameness, or rather absence 
of fear. Among such breeding-places may be mentioned St. Paul’s Rocks, Booby 
Island off Fernando do Noronha, and Raine Island off North-Eastern Australia. 
The white-bellied gannet (S. leucogaster ) of St. Paul’s Rocks and Raine Island, 
makes a slight nest of green twigs and grass on the ground; while the blue-eyed 
gannet ( S. cyanops ) merely digs a hole about an inch and a half deep. The latter 
species is nearly white, with the naked parts of the face blue and the iris bright 
yellow; while the smaller Australian, S. piscatrix, differs from both the others by 
its bright red feet. Moseley writes that “ on the low cliffs of Booby Island the 
noddies [terns] and boobies nest on all the available ledges, and sat on their nests 
quite undisturbed as we rowed past them. It was curious to see the doves nesting 
together with these two sea-birds on the same ledges and with their nests inter¬ 
mingled.” Remains of extinct gannets are found in the lower portion of the Miocene 
deposits of France; while the rocks belonging to the middle portion of the same 
period have yielded bones of a gannet-like bird with wings even longer than those 
of the albatross, for which the name of Pelargornis has been proposed. Nearly 
allied to the latter is the so-called Argillornis from the much older London Clay of 
England. Still more remarkable is the tooth-billed cormorant ( Odontopteryx ), 
of the latter formation, which, while apparently allied to the cormorants, differs 
from all existing birds in having the bony margins of the jaws produced into a 
number of tooth-like processes. 
The Pelicans. 
Family P ELEC ANIL ^E. 
Although pelicans are now quite unknown in Britain, the occurrence of their 
bones in the fens of Norfolk and Cambridge indicates that comparatively recently 
they were at least occasional visitors. The largest representatives of their order, 
these birds are distinguished from all others by the enormous development of the 
