A far more elegant and interesting bird, is the gannet or Solan goose—Sula bassana. On the wing, the gannet is the most striking-looking bird I have ever seen. They are three feet in length, and their wings stretch six feet. They are white, except the outer half of the wing, which is black, the bill, legs, and feet black, and head yellow. What crowds of them we saw, both in the air and on the water, off Cape Skagen, near the southwestern part of Iceland! During the summer, the Meal-Sack Island swarms with them. The female lays but one or two eggs, nearly white, but not much larger than the common duck’s egg, though the bird is as large as the goose. The gannet is exceedingly fond of rocky islands a little way from the main shore, like the Bass rock in the Forth, the Ailsa Craig in the Clyde, and on the Iceland Meal-Sack. By these and similar places is either a strong current or a strong run of tide, and here are plenty of fish. Herrings, and very often cod and haddock, are their favorite prey. On the wing as well as in the water, the gannet is a powerful bird. With terrible impetuosity, they descend from a great height, and plunging into the water, seize and carry off their prey. Like all fishing birds, the gannet has a keen sight, keener probably than the eagle, for he can discern his prey in the water, while at a great height, and when the curl of the surface so scatters the light that human vision, aided by all the contrivances of science, cannot penetrate a single inch. How singular is nature in all her operations! But for a peculiar structure, this bird, as swift as he has to plunge into the water, would be killed, or at least stunned and rendered helpless. The cellular tissue beneath the skin, on the under part of the bird, is formed into air-cells, and inflated by a peculiar muscular action; and this gives a surface of great elasticity, and both breaks the force of the blow, and prevents the bird going very deep under water. When the gannet comes up with his prey, he rises by a regular momentum directly out of the water, and is on the wing the instant he appears above the surface.
In one more chapter, I shall complete my brief notices of some of the more interesting of the birds common in Iceland.
CHAPTER XXI
The little boat she is tossed about,
Like a sea-weed to and fro;
The tall ship reels like a drunken man,
As the gusty tempests blow:
But the sea-bird laughs at the pride of man,
And sails in a wild delight,
On the torn up breast of the night-black sea,