Kenneth Macaulay, who visited the island more than a century and a quarter ago, sa}s, in writing of the Fulmar, that "to ])lunder his nest, or to offci' indignity to it, is a high crime and niisdc-moanour." The sacred regard for the bird implied in this ([notation does not seem to have been nudntaincd, for it is now reniors(^lessl' snarrd upon its nest durinji" the bi'ccdinij' season on all the islands exce^Dt St. Kilda and the Doon.

SOLDIERS' PILLOWS. 11^

The facsiinilu on page IIG of an eng-raving of the bird in IMartin's book, when compared with our photograph, illustrates the progress of human effort towards truth and accuracy during the last two hundred }'ears.

One authority states that "each Fulmar contains about half a pint of oil," but my observations and dissections did not corroborate this estimate. The oil gives off such a strong odour that everything in St. Kilda smells of it. I fetched two fowling-rods away with me as curiosities, but when I g-ot them home discovered that they could not be tolerated anywhere in the house. Thev were, therefore, relegated to an exposed corner in the garden, and remained there bleaching from June to November, at the end of which time the smell appeared to have quite gone, and I took them indoors. In a few days, however, it returned again with something akin to its former streng'th.

My friend Mackenzie told me that the feathers plucked from the Fulmars are mixed with those of other birds and sold to the Government for stuffing soldiers' ])illows. Before being used they are thoroughly fumigated, but in al)out three years the smell returns to them so strongly that Tommy Atkins refuses to rest his sleeping head on them until they have been again roasted.

Some notion may be formed of the number of birds breeding on St. Kilda and its satellites from the eggs gathered. Martin says that his party, consisting of seventy souls all told, consumed sixteen thousand eggs in three weeks, and that the natives, who were at that time nearly tri^ile their number, ate many more, man for man. He saw twenty-nine baskets of eggs brought down from the rocks in one morning, each of which held from four to eight hundred.

In considering these enormous figures it must not be forgotten that in nearly every case the birds producing- them only lay one egg for each—as, instance, the Gannet^ Fulmar Petrel, P'orked- Tailed Petrel, Stormy Petrel, Manx Sheai-water, Guillemot, Razorbill, and Puffin. The wind began to freshen from the West, and as we had done all the work possible on 8oa we commenced to descend. I found this to be an exceedingly difficult and dangerous matter on account of my inability to use the left foot, as the pain in nn- injured toe was excruciating every time I attempted to i)ut it to the ground.

When w^e looked down upon the sea there was some reason for anxiety. It had risen to such an alarming extent that it was doubtful whether we should be able to re-embark. Our boat was jigging about on the Avaves in a truly remarkable fashion.

The prospect of a compulsory stay on the isle of Soa without anything to eat except raw eggs and sea-birds for days—or nuxybe weeks—together, was not pleasant to contemplate. However, a few days of the discomforts of St. Kilda prepare the traveller for a deal, especially if he has any heart for adventure and a taste for the routi'li side of thino-s.

In due season we arrived within earshot of the boat, and some piece of intelligence shouted from it in the Gaelic tongue seemed to electrify the men who were with us, and there began the most heated debate we had as yet been compelled to listen to. It was all yelled back and forth above the boom of the breakers, and a})peared to l)e a (juarrel which could not possibly end short of the spilling of somebody's blood. I instinctively tiirm'd to uiy friend Mackenzie, to see if 1 could read aught of the consequence of the matter in his face, l)ut it was

iiiiperturbaljly placid, and I felt reassured. By-aud-by everybody sininiered down to a condition of sweet reasonableness, and we began the dangerous and exciting business of re-embarkation. The great difficulty was to get the boat near enough for us to make a flying leap aboard, and yet preserve her from having her timbers stove in \)o\ the rocks, against which the waves were leaping to tremendous heights. A big one broke over the corner of a rock which afforded the craft some shelter, and drenched its occupants, together with some of our apparatus, which I fear will for ever bear witness to the rudeness of the seas running round Soa.

When it came to my turn to enter her, I cautiously advanced to a point at which there ap})eared to be safe foothold in a crevice full of salt-water and winkle-shells. Here I waited for an opportunity, whilst the waves broke round my legs and the boat danced about in front of me in the most dizzying fashion. At last I thought my chance had come, and prepared to leap; but the craft, instead of rising to where I expected, sank like a plummet into the trough of the sea. The man beldnd me had slacked the safety rope in order to leave me free to bound forward, and in the absence of its steadying strain I slipped, overbalanced myself, and dived head-foremost into the boat five or six feet below. I struck one of the seats with my right shoulder and neck, and saw stars of every magnitude and colour. I made sure my collarbone had gone, but luckily I was mistaken. It was a narrow escape, as I struck the boat's gunwale just below my right hip, and might have dropped between her and the rock, in which case I should have been crushed to death almost to a certainty. It was a week or two before I lost the black and

blue mementoes of Soa from various parts of my body. I now learned from Mr. Young the origin of the heated debate which I had feared would end in sanguinary warfare. The Commonwealth had suffered a loss. In our aljsence the boat had tumbled about to such an extent that the boy had become sea-sick; the poor feUow had been violently pitched from one side of the craft to the other, and falling on one of the great clumsy oars had broken its ample timbers right in two.

We now pulled away through the Straits dividing Soa from St. Kilda, and I shall never forget the magnificent sight of the waves at this ])oint. They rolled in from the open Atlantic like great green monsters, each more anxious than the rest to engidf us and our frail barque. There was considerable doubt whether we should ever fetch Village Bay that night with only three oars, and the men proposed to land us at the bottom of the Glen in order that we might walk home; but I don't think anybody cared to try that course when they saw the great white sea-horses leaping upon the rocks in that quarter, so we rowed slowly past.

When just beneath the towering face of Conagher I observed a Guillemot of peculiar plumage in the sea; and as Mr. Young thought it would be an interesting acquisition to a provincial museum in which he was interested, we consulted the natives upon the subject of frightening the birds, and, after gaining their unanimous constant, the factor raised his gun and fired. The shot brougjit about one of the grandest scenes of bird-life I have ever seen or ex])ect to see again. The air was instaiitl- filled with a vast multitude of Itii'ds, the noise of whose countless wings was like the low rumbling sound of distant thunder. From the topmost ledges

of Conagher to the caves at its base, more than a thousand feet below, there poured seawards a great throng of Fuhnar Petrels, Guillemots, Eazorbills, Puffins, and Shags. As far as the eye could reach in that direction the cloud of feathered creatures seemed to extend and confuse the sense of sight by their evolutions. In an hour or two we landed in Village Bay, stiff, tired, cold, wet, sore, and hungry.

It is interesting to note that the St. Kildans, in landing from their boat on Soa or Borrera, practise exactly the same methods to-day that their forefathers did two centuries ago.

In writing of the former island, Martin mentions an amusing incident which happened there two years prior to his visit:—"There was a cock-boat came from a ship for water, being favoured l)y a perfect calm; the men discerned a prodigious number of eggs upon the rocks which tempted them to venture near the place, and at last obtained a competent number of them; one of the seamen was industrious enough to put them into his breeches, which he took off for the purpose. Some of the inhabitants of St. Kilda who happened to be in the isle that day were spectators of the diversion, and were offended at it being done without their consent; they therefore devised an expedient which at once robbed the

:seamen of their eggs and the breeches. 'Twas thus they found a few loose stones in the superficies of the rock, some of which they let fall down perpendicularly above the seamen, the terror of which obliged them quickly to remove, abandoning both breeches and eggs for their safety; and the tar-l^aulin breeches were no small ornament in a place where all wore girded plaids."

Of the skill and daring: of the St. Kildans as

cragsmen some opinion may he formed when it is stated that they cUmh the tallest of the rock-staeks (Biorrach) shown in the accompanying pictiu-e, which has heen reproduced from a photogTa]ih taken whilst we were on Soa. It is from four to five hundred feet in height, and has to be ascended without the aid of a rope. Biorrach is the most difficult rock-stack to scale in the whole of the St. Kilda group, and was in former times one of the tests of a man's nerve when he offered himself as a candidate for the coveted fold of nuitrimonial bliss.

A few years ago a couple of fowlers climbed it for the small reward of a quid of tobacco.

Accidents do not often ha])pen nowadays; but to judge from Sir Robert Moray they must have been of somewhat frequent occurrence in former times, for he says that a St. Kildan was rarely known to die in his bed, being either drowned or having his neck broken by a fall over the cliffs.

The decrease in the death-rate from accidents is no doubt due to the exercise of greater care whilst climbing. My brother went out one afternoon along with one of the young men in order to photograph a Fulmar's nest and egg, and descended such an awkward cliff that the St. Kildan never expected to sec him come up alive again, and said that if the men had been there the}^ would not have allowed him to go down such a j^lace without a rope.

The fowling-ropes now in use are nuide of Manilla hem]), but formerly they were of horsehair, which in Martin's time was protected by a coat of cowhide. I was fortunate enough to secure the hist old rojjc on the islimd for half-a-crown, and upon inquiry discovered thai the hair of which it was composed had cost iive sliilHngs })er pound, and that the last man in

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