Forms: α. 5– soland (7 sorland), 6 solande, -end, 7–8 solund. β. 6 solane, 7– solan; 8 sollen. [f. ON. and Icel. súla (also Icel. hafsúla, Norw. havsula) gannet; the second element may be ON. ǫnd, and- (Norw., Sw., Da. and) duck. Originally Sc., but known to English writers from the middle of the 17th cent.]
1. The gannet (Sula bassana), a large sea-fowl resembling a goose, which frequents a few rocks and small islands of Britain, the Færöes, Iceland and Canada.
c. 1450. Holland, Howlat, 700. The Soland [as] stewart was sent; For he couth fro the firmament Fang the fische deid.
1749. Collins, On Popular Superstit., x. Along the Atlantic rock, undreading climb, And or its eggs despoil the solan’s nest.
1808. Scott, Marm., III. iii. The rafters … Bore wealth of winter cheer; Of sea-fowl dried, and solands store.
a. 1851. Moir, The Bass Rock, ii. At times the solan’s wing … Brushed near us.
1873. Black, Pr. Thule, III. ix. 285. A white solan … struck the water as he dived.
2. attrib. with goose, = sense 1.
α. 1536. Bellenden, Chron. Scot., ix. (1541), B vj b. In it [the Bass Rock] ar incredible noumer of soland geis;… And ar sene in na part of Albion, bot in this crag and Ailsay.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot. (S.T.S.), I. 55. The neist Ile named Elza … abundes in Solend geis, and monie vthiris sey foulis.
1651. Cleveland, Poems, 37.
| A Scot, when from the Gallow-Tree got loose, | |
| Drops into Styx, and turns a Solund-Goose. |
1678. Butler, Hud., III. II. 655/131.
| As Barnacles turn Soland-Geese, | |
| In th’ Islands of the Orcades. |
1694. Falle, Jersey, ii. 73. Here are to be seen the famous Sorland Geese, whose Equivocal Generation … is received by many amongst Us for Truth.
1710. Sibbald, Hist. Fife & Kinross, II. 45. The Fowls which most frequent the Bass, are the Anseres Bassani or Soland-Geese.
1768. Pennant, Brit. Zool., I. Pref. The clouds of Soland geese on the Bass island.
1821. Sporting Mag., VII. 191. A Soland goose or gannet was shot by a fisherman of Southampton.
1843. Yarrell, Brit. Birds, III. 381. The Gannet, Soland Goose.
β. 1583. Reg. Privy Council Scot., III. 624. To draw and alluir the auld solane geise to the boittis.
1668. Charleton, Onomast., 95. Anser Bassanus,… the Solan Goose.
1698. M. Martin, Voy. St. Kilda, 7. A prodigious Number of Solan Geese hatching in their Nests.
1725. Portland Papers (Hist. MSS. Comm.), VI. 111. The Bass … I think has no inhabitants but the Solan geese which breed there.
1816. Scott, Antiq., vi. There was the relishing Solan goose, whose smell is so powerful that he is never cooked within doors.
1863. Intellect. Obs., Sept., 118. The Solan Goose is not so numerous upon Ailsa as the puffin.
