"Gannet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rendering "booby" follows Cuvier's note to the French translation. The "booby" is the "booby gannet." The Spanish dictionaries give pelican as the meaning of Alcatraz. The gannets and the pelicans were formerly classed together. The word Alcatraz was taken over into English and corrupted to Albatros. Alfred Newton, Dictionary of Birds ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... commit his body to the deep To be turned into corruption' ... The bo's'n whispers Hoarsely behind his hand: 'Now, all together!' The hatch-cover is tilted; a mummy of sailcloth Well ballasted with iron shoots clear of the poop; Falls, like a diving gannet. The green sea closes Its burnished skin; the snaky swell smoothes over ... While he, the man of the steerage, goes down, down, Feet foremost, sliding swiftly down the dim water, Swift to escape Those plunging shapes with pale, empurpled bellies That swirl and veer about him. He ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... young, which lay under old ones upon the bare ground. The rest had eggs, of which they only lay one, larger than that of a pigeon, bluish and speckled with black. There were also a good many common boobies, a sort that are almost like a gannet, and a sooty or chocolate-coloured one, with a white belly. To this list we must add men-of-war birds, tropic-birds, curlews, sand-pipers, a small land-bird like a hedge-sparrow, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the six girls came behind him and pushed with all their strength. Up he went with his legs pointed as straight as an arrow, and back he flew and up again. The third time the swing flew clean over the Well-House, and as true as a diving gannet Martin dropped from mid-air into the little court, and stood face ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... parks, the Salisbury doves though in the town are not of it. They come not down to mix with the currents of human life in the streets and open spaces; they fly away to the country to feed, and dwell on the cathedral above the houses and people just as sea-birds—kittiwake and guillemot and gannet—dwell on the ledges of ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson |
