GANNET (AS. ganot, garret, OHG. ganazzo, MHG. gauze, gander; connected ultimately with Lat. wiser, Gk. xi)v, then, Skt. hainsa, goose). A large gregarious seabird, closely allied to the pelicans. Gannets frequent the coasts of most parts of the world offering rocky cliffs upon which they may breed in fair security, and nine species are known, constituting the genus Sula and family Sulidre. Most of the species inhabit the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere, and are called boobies (see Boony) by sailors.
The typical and best-known member of the family is the gannet of the North Atlantic (Sulu Bassana), which derives its specific name from its frequency on Bass Rock, in the English Chan nel; it is also called solan (i.e. Solent) goose, for the same reason. It is scattered in summer at suitable places all around the British and Scandinavian coasts, about the islands of the North Atlantic, and from southern Greenland down to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Neverthe less, their colonies are scattered and steadily diminishing. This gannet has a body much like that of a goose, but weighs less; its total length is about three feet, much of which belongs to the neck, and long, strong, conical beak. Its gen eral color when adult is white, with the head and neck buff, and the primaries of the long wings black and very conspicuous as they lie crossed above the tail when folded. Young specimens are mottled brown until three or four years old. In winter the gannets migrate to the northwest coasts and islands of Africa, or to the Gulf of Mexico; but early in the season they go north again, appearing at their breed ing haunts in April, where by May they are col lected in thousands about the sea-fronting cliffs.
The gannets of Bass Rock were estimated in 1831 at 20,000, and in 1869 at 12,000, and are known to be decreasing there and in the Hebrides, owing to the excessive gathering of their eggs and downy young. On the American coast they nest along the shore of Labrador, and at Pero Rock and Bonaventure Island, off the Gaspe Pe ninsula, and on Bird Rock, an outlier of the Magdalen group, in company with murres, kit tiwakes, etc.; but even in these almost inaccessi ble places are growing less in numbers, although somewhat protected. Upon the summits and ledges, wherever a square yard of room may be found, a gannet places its shallow nest of seaweed, and lays and incubates its single chalky-white egg. The sitting females crowded along the ledges make them look sometimes as if covered with snow, while the neighborhood will be full of their mates, roosting, flying about, or darting down into the sea. They sail about at a consider able height, their eyes searching the surface for fish, and when one is seen they turn downward, shut the wings, and seem to drop upon it with amazing velocity, rarely missing a capture. They also make long excursions seaward, and toward the close of the breeding season are of service to the fisherman by finding and disclosing to him shoals of herrings and the like, which they follow and prey upon in great numbers. For the gannets in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, con sult the following richly illustrated books: Chap man, Bird Studies with a Camera (New York, 1900) ; Job, Among the Waterfowl (New York, 1902).