S8 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



The above in the first column is the number of birds 

 killed by each of the sixteen bodies of shareholders, and 

 multiplied by sixteen gives the totals in the second column. 

 The flesh is for the winter supply of food for a population 

 of about seventy souls, and the feathers represent the " rent 

 in kind," or such portion of the rent so paid. 



Notwithstanding the annual slaughter to take only one 

 example Fulmars are increasing to such an extent that 

 they have been found (quite of recent years) extending 

 their breeding range to several suitable resorts, such as Foula, 

 etc. But it must also be remembered that the St. Kildians 

 are not now so utterly dependent upon their raids on the 

 birds as formerly, because they are much better supplied 

 with many luxuries, and it has become less necessary for 

 them to " go to the rocks." 



I have also to express my thanks to Mr. G. W. Hartley, 

 who spent one winter shooting season (1898-99) in North 

 Uist, and contributed an interesting account of the experi- 

 ences of his party there to the i oooth number of" Blackwood's 

 Magazine" (special double number, pp. 413-426). He 

 kindly sent me his notes, with permission to use them 

 freely. 



In the descriptive portion of our " Fauna of the Outer 

 Hebrides," we spoke of the various species of wild-fowl which 

 had been introduced in South Harris by Lord Dunmore(/0<r. tit. 

 p. lix). At the present time there is a somewhat melancholy 

 interest attaching to these forlorn birds. Mr. Finlayson, 

 gamekeeper, writing to me in the spring of 1901, says that 

 very little interest is now taken in these fowls. The feeding 

 has been stopped all during the shooting season, and no one 

 was paid to look after them. But after the season was over 

 he fed them, and got some to return, but found many others 

 dead about the island. Many had been, no doubt, wounded 

 at sea. Thus, of the large flock of half-tame Grey-lag Geese 

 which used to be safe at Rodel, only some seven remained 

 in the spring of 1901. Of the foreign wild-fowl introduced 

 at Rodel, all had disappeared ; most of them died, and the 

 rest escaped. 



Of the other birds generally it is stated : " Eagles are 

 scarcer. There have been none at one old haunt in South 



