i 4 S ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



peopled. There he has to wait all night while the birds are 

 away feeding. Just before the earliest dawn he hides him- 

 self as close to the edge of the rock as possible, and holds 

 up something white, as a handkerchief, on the rock beside 

 him. The first comer seems to think that this is a still 

 earlier arrival, and settles down beside it. It is at once 

 pounced upon, killed, and held up in a sitting attitude in 

 order to induce the next comers to settle down beside it. 

 They return in little flocks of from half a dozen to a dozen, 

 and out of each the fowler may catch two or three, or if 

 lucky even more. He goes on in this way till it gets so 

 light that no more will settle. Sometimes he may not be 

 very successful, but in general he can catch from sixty to 

 seventy. The danger here is that in his anxiety to seize a 

 bird he may overbalance. In general, however, all goes 

 well, and he is hauled up safely. The other way of capturing 

 them is with the snaring-rod when they are hatching, and 

 this way, as they breed in the more inaccessible rocks, is 

 more dangerous than the other. If these rocks have to be 

 reached from above it often requires the joint efforts of four 

 or five men before one can be lowered down step by step to 

 the required position. If at all possible there must be a 

 second man stationed not far from him, so that he may be 

 able to reach the end of the rod, take out the bird, and reset 

 the snare. He has also to point out where the birds are, 

 where the best footholds are situated, and make himself 

 generally useful. Several who have come down so far 

 together may be in the same way engaged on other ledges. 

 When they have killed all the birds within reach those 

 secured are gradually passed to the top, the fowlers follow, 

 and the spoil is divided. That a rope may break is not a 

 very common source of danger : much more common is a tuft 

 of grass slipping from the rock under the foot, or a stone 

 loosened either by the foot or the rope falling upon those 

 below. Once when I was with them I had to dress a wound 

 in a man's head from which the brain was protruding, 

 caused by a stone falling upon him when fowling on Soay. 

 He fortunately recovered. These birds are of no great 

 value. They are not much esteemed as food, and their 

 feathers neither bulk much nor are very valuable. It is the 



