I HARVEY. 431- jyou (as from a steep tower or precipice), you will see it all spread over with several sorts of fowl, swimming to and fro, in pursuit of their prey, jjust as some ditches or lakes in the spring-time jare paved with frogs, or open hills and steep mountains are covered with flocks of sheep and j goats. If you sail round the island, and look up into the several chffs and caverns of it, you will find them all peopled and inhabited with several colonies of birds and fowl, of distinct kind and magnitude ; more, indeed, than in a clear night, when the moon is absent, there are stars to be discerned in the firmament : and if you observe the several regiments of those that sally out and those that flock homewards at the same time, you would take them for an infinite swarm of bees. It is not to be imagined what a vast yearly revenue the lord of the island maketh of the plumes and the old nests * (which are use- ful for firing), together with the eggs, which he boils, and then traflicketh away: that which he himself told me was indeed incredible. " But one thing, which comes nearer to our
- It does not seem from this account of the island, that the
Solan-goose itself was, in the days of Harvey, held in esteem, as a sort of luxury ; though about the middle of the 17th century, i. e, about 50 years afterwards. Pennant states that a young one was sold for 20(1., and it maintained the same price in the time of the naturalist. Then it was, and is still, served up, roasted, a little before dinner, as an article of Scottish friandise. Pennant gives the following affiche of the sale of this delicacy. '« SOLAN GOOSE. " There is to be sold, by John Walton, Jun,, at his stand at the Poultry, Edinburgh, all lawful days in the week, wind and weather serving, good and fresh Solan geese. Any who have occasion for the same, may have them at reasonable rates, « Aug. 5, 1768."
