In descending from the semi-underground dwellings I noticed three or four strips of ground, about two feet wide and twelve feet long, with the sod cut out and turned wrong-side up. The cuttings ran straight up and down the steep hill-side, and upon inquiry I discovered that they had been made by the members of a party v/hich had recently been staying upon the island as a signal to their friends on St. Kilda that the work which had occasioned their visit bad been done, and they were ready to be taken off. If anybody should fall ill whilst sojourning on Borrera for more than a day this signal, or a fire lighted on the open hill-side, is used to warn the St. Kildans at home that something is wrong and that the boat is wanted. During the time friends are absent from home on a prolonged wool-gathering, or birdcatching, expedition, daily watch is ke})t from the top of the hills behind St. Kilda village for any signals which they may make for assistance. ]3y-and-l:)y we were joined by tiie other nunnbers of our party, each of whom seemed to come from a different quarter of the island, laden with Fulmars and i'uriins. The gromid officer's eldest son, Mr. A. Ferguson,

FERGUSON FOWLING ON BORRERA.

who a year or two back forsook the hnie crapes of St. Kilda for the more lucrative and less adventurous life of a Glasgow commercial house, happened to he at home on a holiday at the time of our visit, and we persuaded him to accompany us to Borrera, as he was not only an intelligent and genial companion, but also very useful in interpreting for us in the absence of our friend the factor, who could not go out that day. He was desirous of seeing whether his hand had lost its cunning with the fowling- rod, and one of the men accordingly fastened a vo)Q round him and paid it out from a sure footing as he disappeared over the brink of a fearful precipice. I crawled cliff,on my hands and knees to the edge of the and was astonished to see him pass the noose over the head of a Fulmar and take her off her nest with so much skill and deftness that other birds sitting close around did not appear to be at all disturbed by the fate of their neighbour. Their conduct in this respect was totally unlike that of the birds we had watched under similar circumstances on the Doon.

By the aid of a rope my brother got into a very hazardous and awkward situation, from which he managed to take a photograph of the ex-fowler in the holiday war-j^aint of Buchanan Street.

As we descended to the place of re-embarkation, I could not make out why the two men who were alonir with me ^ot into such a state of excitement, but ])resently learnt that their anxiety was lest I ofshould spoil my trousers by my peculiar method progression. 'I'ln^y were highly annised when I explained to them, through a lad who overtook us, that so grc^atmy concern for the safety of my neck was that I had absolutely none left for my garments.

Just as I was congratulating myself upon having got down to the water's edge again in safety, and doffing the climbing-rope I had had attached to my shoulders for safety, it was announced that we could not possibly re- ship at the j^lace where we had landed, on account of the tremendous ground-swell. My heart sank within me when I looked up at the awful detour we should be obliged to make in order to get to a place where the conditions for embarkation would Ije more favoural^le. The thing looked impossible. After travelling in a slanting, upward direction for some time, we came to a narrow ledge, along which we cautiously crept, with the sea boiling and thundering a couple of hundred feet sheer beneath us. I had had a rope attached to me all the time, but my brother refused to have any safeguard of this kind, deeming himself capable of going wherever the 8t. Kildans went under similar conditions; but when we came to a great yawning chasm in the rock which had to be leapt, they appeared to recognise their own responsibility in the matter, and quietly lassoed him from behind. In order to make assurance doubly sure in my case they tied two ropes round me, and, when I jumped, one was held by a man who had already crossed the chasm, and the other by one who had not yet done so. The side upon which I landed was lower than that from which I leapt, and the sting of alighting upon hard rock without boots on one's feet is something to be remembered for many a day. We had not gone far along this awful path before I discovered a dead sheep wedged betwixt two crags. It had no doubt been blown from the heights that towered against the blue sky far overhead. I was anxious to examine it from a natural history point

of view, and induced mv guide to slack the rope between us in order that I might do so. As I expected, the Ravens or Hooded Crows had pecked out both the unfortunate creature's eyes. A little farther along I heard a curious noise proceeding from an immense horizontal fissure running jiarallel with the ledge along which we were travelHng. The tiling puzzled me, and I coidd not resist the temptation to crawl in and investigate the cause. I found the crevice tenanted by a colony of Shags, whose young ones were crying lustily for more fresh fish. After some difficulty and danger, we managed to half-leap and half-tumble into the frail old boat, to a letterwhich a month or two later—according I had from Finlay McQuien—went to splinters on the rocks during a gale. ]\Iartin's first experience of the birds at St. Kilda was gained near Borrera, and his own account of what he saw is worth quoting. He says:— "We put in under the hollow of an extraordinary high rock (Stack in Armin) to the north of this isle (Borrera), which was all covered with a prodigious number of Solan Geese luitching on their eggs; the heavens were darkened by their flying over oar heads; their excrements were in such (puuitity tluit they gave a tincture to the sea, and at the same time sullied our lioat and clothes. Two of them confirmed the truth of what has been frequently reported of their stealing from one another grass wherc^with to make their nests by affording us the following very agreeable diversion, and it was thus: One of them, finding his neighbour's nest without the fowl, lays hold on the opportunity and steals from it as much grass as he could convenieutK carry off, itikiiig his flight towards

AT THE FOOT OF THE CLIFFS, BORRERA.

the ocean; from thence lie presently returns as if he had made a foreign purchase, but it does not pass for such. For the owner had discovered the fact befor(3 the thief had got out of sight, and too nimble for his cunning, waits his return all armed with fury and engages him desperately; this bloody battle was fought above our heads, and proved fatal to the thief, who fell dead so near our Iboat that our men took him up and presently dressed and eat him, which they reckoned as an omen of good success in the voyage."

Although we saw plenty of Solan Geese building their nests, we w^ere not treated to anything in the way of examples of petty larceny and bloody justice which seem to have supplied our rather sanguinary- minded old friend Martin with what he frankly calls a " very agreeable diversion."

Martin says that he made particular inquiry as to how many 8olan Geese were killed and eaten in St. Kilda in a year, and found that in a bad season no less than twenty-two thousand five hundred had been caught and consumed. Both the people and the birds appear to have been more numerous then than now. One authority has estimated the number of Gannets breeding on the St. Kilda group of islands at two hundred thousand, and computed their summer consum])tion of fish at two hundred and fourteen millions, adding that the sight of the birds resting on Stack Lee is " one of tlu^ wonders of the world."

The Solan Geese return to their breeding quarters on Borrcra and the adjoining rock stacks in ]\Iarch, about the middle of which month the St. Kildans go forth in their Ijoats to raid the sleeping birds under the cover of darkness. According to Sands, the foray is managed in tlic following way:—"Two

GANNET AND YOUNG.

men fastened at either end of a rope ascend the rocks, and on all-fours crawl along the ledge where the geese are resting. The latter have always a sentinel posted, who, if he thinks all is well, cries,

' ' on hearing which the fcnvlers Gorrok! Gorrok I

'advance; but if the sentinel cries Beero! ' the men remain motionless with their bonnets drawn over their brows, and their faces on the rock. If the sentinel fancies it was a false alarm, and again cries ' Gorrok I ' the first fowler progresses until he is near enough to grasp the sentinel and twist his powerful neck. The sentinel gone, the whole flock falls into a state of panic and bewilderment, and crowd upon the man on all sides. He has nothing to do but despatch them. But it sometimes happens

' l^eerothat the whole troop take flight with a

'harro! boo I when the men have to crawl back without any game for that night."

On returning from their winter rpiarters the birds are allowed, to get thoroughly settled down on their usual roosting rocks, when a dark calm night is chosen for raiding them.

If the sentinel gives the alarm, and the birds fly oft", they sometimes assail their would-be captors in departing, and the men have to look out for the safety of their eyes. Caps and mufflers are occasionally carried off by the angry Gannets.

During our stay Willie Macdonald caught an old male l)ir(l Avliilst lie sat asleep on l^orrera in broad daylight. The young Gannets arc killed in Septemljcr. Guillemots are also caught at night, but in a festally different manner. Aljout three weeks after the birds have returned to their breeding quarters on tin; rocks they arc; siuldeidy driven away from a number of favourite ledges late one evening, and

islono' before dawn the followiui;- morning- a man lowered to each. Here lie sits, motionless as a statue, and at the first suggestion of daybreak the birds stream up from the sea and alight upon him, thinking ho is a rock, and are ^^I'omptly secured and killed. As many as a hundred may be killed in this way in an hour, I was told, by one man alone. Directly it becomes light enough to distinguish the fowler from a rock, the birds steer clear of the ledge on which he sits and he is hauled up. Our old friend Martin says that he was told by the steward "that a red-coat had been found in one Solan Goose's nest, and a brass sun-dial, an arrow, and some Molucca beans in another."

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