spread wings; and such is also the Editor’s experience of
the habits of this bird as observed in the deep clear water of
the coast of Donegal. In a tank or pond their movements
would naturally be different.
In the adult bird the bill is black, the base of the under
mandible chrome-yellow, and the naked skin about the gape
black, thickly studded with small round yellow spots ; the
irides green ; the forehead bearing a crest curved forward,
assumed very early in the spring; the crown, neck, breast,
and all the under surface of the body a rich dark green with
purple and bronze reflections ; back and wing-coverts dark
green, each feather with a narrow, but darker margin; wing
and the twelve tail-feathers black; legs, toes, and their membranes
black. Total length twenty-seven inches ; of the wing
from the wrist ten inches and three-quarters. Both sexes
are alike in plumage.
Young birds have the bill very slender, the membrane of
the lower mandible yellow; the upper plumage brown, tinted
with green ; the under surface brownish-ash, mingled with
white.
Mr. J. Whitaker has a variety, shot in Scotland in the
winter of 1883, of a cream colour with light brown markings
on the back and wings.
STEGANOPODES. P ELEC A NIDsR.
Sula ba s sa n a (Linnteus*).
THE GANNET,
OR SOLAN GOOSE.
Sula alba.
Sula, Brisson +.—Bill strong, long, forming an elongated cone, very large at
its base, compressed towards the point, which is slightly curved ; edges of the
mandibles serrated ; the angle of tbe gape behind the line of the eyes. Face