most useful in indicating to fishermen) to a great distance from land. Their prey is almost invariably captured by plunging upon it from a height, and a company of Gannets fishing presents a curious and interesting spectacle. Flying in single file, each bird, when it comes over the shoal, closes its wings and dashes perpendicularly, and

with a velocity that must be seen to be appreciated, into the waves, whence it emerges after a few seconds, and, shaking the water from its feathers, mounts in a wide curve, orderly taking its place in the rear of the string, to repeat its headlong plunge so soon as it again finds itself above its prey.1

1 The large number of Gannets, and the vast quantity of fish they take, have been frequently animadverted upon, but the computations on this last point are

Structurally the Gannet presents many points worthy of note, such as its closed nostrils, its aborted tongue, and its toes all connected by a web-characters which it possesses in common with most of the other members of the group of birds (STEGANOPODES) to which it belongs. But more remarkable still is the system of subcutaneous air-cells, some of large size, pervading almost the whole surface of the body, communicating with the lungs, and capable of being inflated or emptied at the will of the bird. This peculiarity has attracted the attention of several writers-Montagu, Sir R. Owen (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1831, p. 90), and Macgillivray; but a full and particular account of the anatomy of the Gannet is still to be desired.

In the southern hemisphere the Gannet is represented by two nearly allied but somewhat smaller forms—one Sula capensis, inhabiting the coast of South Africa, and the other, S. serrator, the Australian seas. Both much resemble the northern bird, but the former seems to have a permanently black tail, and the latter a tail the four middle feathers of which are blackish-brown with white shafts.

Apparently inseparable from the Gannets generically are the smaller birds well known to sailors by the name of BOOBY, which has passed into an English byword, though few know its Portuguese origin.

GARDENER-BIRD, see BOWER-BIRD.

GARE-FOWL1 (Icelandic, Geirfugl; Gaelic, Gearbhul), the anglicized form of the Hebridean name of a large sea-bird, forperhaps fallacious. It seems to be certain that in former days fishes, and herrings in particular, were at least as plentiful as now, if not more so, notwithstanding that Gannets were more numerous. Those frequenting the Bass were reckoned by Macgillivray at 20,000 in 1831, while in 1869 they were computed at 12,000, showing a decrease of two-fifths in 38 years. On Ailsa in 1869 there were supposed to be as many as on the Bass, but their number was estimated at 10,000 in 1877 (Report on the Herring Fisheries of Scotland, 1878, pp. xxv. and 171),-being a diminution of one-sixth in eight years, or nearly twice as great as on the Bass. The falling-off has since been still greater, but I have no means of computing it.

1 "Avis Gare dicta, Corvo Marino Similis, Ovo maximo" is included in Sibbald's treatise De Animalibus Scotia (p. 22), published in 1684, being the first printed notice of this bird as British, and apparently on information derived from a MS. description of the Western Islands by Dean Munro, drawn up about 1549 (cf. J. A. Smith, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotl. xiii. p. 84, and xiv. p. 436). A modified, not to say corrupt, version of a transcript of this MS., now in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, was printed in 1809 by Pinkerton (Coll. Voy. and Trav. iii. p. 730), who used the same spelling. In 1698 Martin (Voy. to St. Kilda, p. 48) had the name "Gairfowl." Sir R. Owen, in 1864, adopted the form "Garfowl," without, as would seem, any precedent authority. Mr. Alexander Carmichael (Harvie-Brown and Buckley, Vertebr. Faun. Outer

merly a native of certain remote Scottish islands, the GREAT AUK of most English book-writers, and the Alca impennis of Linnæus. Of this remarkable creature mention has been already made (EXTERMINATION), but since the species has a mournful history and several egregious misconceptions prevail concerning it, a few more details may not be unacceptable. In size it was hardly less than a tame Goose, and in appearance it much resembled its smaller and surviving relative the RAZOR-BILL, A. torda; but the

glossy black of its head was varied by a large patch of white occupying nearly all the space between the eye and the bill, in

Hebrides, p. 158) gives the correct Gaelic spelling as Gearr bhul or An Gearrabhul, meaning "the strong, stout bird with the spot"; but others may think the word to be a rendering of the old Norsk name. According to Pennant, Carfil is the generic word in Welsh for any of the Alcide. It may be observed that just as 'Penguin" (or Pin-wing), being the first English name applied to this species, on its discovery in America, has been transferred to birds of a very different Order, so also has Gorfou, the French corruption of Geirfugl, been applied to some of the same.

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