The flight of the Gannet is powerful, well sustained, and at times extremely elegant. While travelling, whether in fine or foul weather, they fly low over the surface of the water, flapping their wings thirty or forty times in succession, in the manner of the Ibis and the Brown Pelican, and then sailing about an equal distance, with the wings at right angles to the body, and the neck extended forwards. But, Reader, to judge of the elegance of this bird while on wing, I would advise you to gaze on it from the deck of any of our packet ships, when her commander has first communicated the joyful news that you are less than three hundred miles from the nearest shore, whether it be that of merry England or of my own beloved country. You would then see the powerful fisher, on well-spread pinions, and high over the water, glide silently along, surveying each swelling wave below, and coursing with so much ease and buoyancy as to tempt you to think that had you been furnished with equal powers of flight, you might perform a journey of eighty or ninety miles without the slightest fatigue in a single hour. But perhaps at the very moment when these thoughts have crossed your mind, as they many times have crossed mine on such occasions, they are suddenly checked by the action of the bird, which, intent on filling its empty stomach, and heedless of your fancies, plunges headlong through the air, with the speed of a meteor, and instantaneously snatches the fish which its keen sight had discovered from on high. Now perchance you may see the snow-white bird sit buoyantly for a while on the bosom of its beloved element, either munching its prey, or swallowing it at once. Or perhaps, if disappointed in its attempt, you will see it rise by continued flappings, shaking its tail sideways the while, and snugly covering its broad webbed feet among the under coverts of that useful rudder, after which it proceeds in a straight course, until its wings being well supplied by the flowing air, it gradually ascends to its former height, and commences its search anew.