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Updated: June 3, 2025
The gannets are such gluttons, they generally fly home so full of fish that they are unable to close their beaks. If the gannet does not let some of the fish fall, the frigate-bird darts rapidly down and strikes it on the back of the head; on which it never fails to give up its prey to the marauder."
"I was thinking, Ready, if those gannets and men-of-war birds would be good eating." "Not very, William; they are very tough and very fishy: we must try for those when we can get nothing better. Now that we have got in the seeds and potatoes, we must all set to to-morrow morning to fell and carry the timber. I think Mr.
The breeze remained fair and we scudded along at a spanking rate, the gannets keeping us company all the way evidently bound to the same shore. I kept talking to Mrs Reichardt, and endeavouring to raise her spirits with the most cheering description of what we should do when we got ashore, for God would be sure to direct us to some place where we might without difficulty recover our strength.
The average annual taking of pilchards in Cornwall is estimated at 20,000 hogsheads. Gulls in countless numbers hover above the fishing-boats, and swoop down for their share in the spoil; sometimes, however, scared away by the more powerful gannets, with whom they dare not dispute.
This morning, August the first, as we were standing in, we saw several large seafowls, like our gannets on the coast of England, flying 3 or 4 together; and a sort of white seamews, but black about the eyes, and with forked tails.
As to foxes, Ross informs us that, although his men did not like them at first, they eventually preferred fox-flesh to any other meat! And as to such birds as gannets and shear-waters, which are generally condemned as unpalatable, on account of their fishy taste, we would observe that the rancid flavour exists only in the fat.
I had little doubt of having now passed the meridian of the eastern part of Timor which is laid down in 128 degrees east. This diffused universal joy and satisfaction. In the afternoon we saw gannets and many other birds, and at sunset we kept a very anxious lookout. In the evening we caught a booby which I reserved for our dinner the next day. Friday 12.
Late in the afternoon we saw a flock of gannets, and some sooty tern; the gannets passing so near that we could hear the motion of their long twisted wings. Later still, a number of small reef-birds passed over head; all were flying westward. This confirmed Arthur in his belief of the proximity of land.
A number of unprincipled man-of-war hawks, who preferred gaining their livelihood by robbing their neighbours and associates, to relying upon their own honest industry, would sail lazily around on wide-spread pinions, watching with the air of unconcerned spectators the methodical toil of the plodding gannets.
The skuas, darker and more courageous birds, are familiar to those who spend their August holiday sea-fishing near the Land's End, where, particularly on days when the east wind brings the gannets and porpoises close inshore, the great skua may be seen at its favourite game of swooping on the gulls and making them disgorge or drop their launce or pilchard, which the bird usually retrieves before it reaches the water.
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