island of Pabbay, which is next to Mingulay. The shearwater seems to be on the decrease in most of its other breeding-places, though I have never heard any reason assigned for the circumstance. We found a few pairs of black guillemots breeding in the low caves and rocks of Mingulay and Berneray; but the eggs are difficult to get at. So far as I have seen, they are always two in number, and are placed in deep cracks and holes, but never in high cliffs, like those of the allied species.
It is not the distance which makes St. Kilda so difficult of access (it is not more than sixty miles from Harris); but the want of a good anchorage, and the never-ceasing swell which beats on its precipitous shore, even, in the calmest weather, form such serious impediments to effecting a landing that, in many seasons, it would be impossible to get there before the middle or end of June.
An intending visitor to St. Kilda must take his choice of two evils: either to go in a small boat, which, on his arrival, can be hauled up on the rocks, though most people would hardly venture three-score miles into the Atlantic in such a craft; or to go in a larger vessel, which can lie in the bay at anchor so long as the wind is light, but would be obliged to put to sea immediately if the weather became bad, as the anchorage is very exposed and dangerous. I had made arrangements for a smack to take me there; but the spring and summer of 1868 were so unusually stormy that I should have failed in the expedition if it had not been for the kindness of Captain Bell, of H.M.S. Harpy, a paddle-steamer, which was going to see how the St. Kildans were faring, since they had been cut off from communication with the other islands for nearly nine months.
About one o’clock a.m. on the 22nd May, the Harpy got under way from the Sound of Taransay and, passing the Islet of Gasgeir, which is fre¬ quented by numbers of the Great Seal, arrived about nine pretty close under the cliffs of Boreray, which is five miles north of St. Kilda itself. As we pitched over the swells which rolled in from the west, long strings of gannets kept constantly passing us on their way to the Minch. They have to travel in this way from fifty to a hundred miles every day to their feeding-ground, as the herrings do not rise near the surface of the water until they get inside the “Long Island.” Much of the seaweed they use in their nests is also brought in the same manner, as the rocks of Boreray do not afford sufficient for such multitudes of birds as breed there.
The insufficiency of material induces the gannets to plunder each other, and Martin quaintly describes an instance he witnesses: “One of them finding his Neighbour’s Nest without the Fowl, lays hold on the Oppor¬ tunity, and steals from it as much Grass as he could conveniently carry off, taking his flight towards the Ocean; from thence he presently returns, as if he had made a foreign Purchase, but it does not pass for such. For the Owner had discovered the Fact, before 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 Boat, that our Men took him up, and presently dressed and eat him; which they reckoned as an Omen of good success in the Voyage.”*
1 Voyage to St. Kilda, p. 8.
