NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 283 



When Captain Feilden and I visited Barra Head in 1870, we 

 were not greatly impressed by the numbers of sea-fowl. Our first 

 and last impression was that Barra Head, as a breeding station, 

 has been lauded far beyond its merits, and we have, since that 

 time, as well as prior to it, satisfied ourselves that there are many 

 rock-bird stations holding a larger population of birds than Barra 

 Head. The birds are much scattered upon small ledges all over 

 the face of the cliffs, leaving great spaces quite untenanted and 

 untenantable, owing to the irregular nature of the rock-strata. 

 Very different is the cliff of Mingalay, with its regular and 

 parallel ledges closely packed with birds ; but of Mingalay we may 

 take another occasion to speak more fully. 



Perhaps the finest view of the rock-birds' haunts on Barra is 

 from the old ruinous keep behind the lighthouse, where a deep 

 gully in the rock runs inland about 100 yards, almost to the base 

 of the lighthouse itself. From the southern side of this gully the 

 whole face of the opposite cliff is seen. There, in 1869, the 

 Peregrine Falcon had its eyrie, and Mr. Theo. Walker, with the 

 assistance of Mr. Maclachlan, procured the young. Captain Elwes, 

 in his able paper on " The Bird Stations of the Outer Hebrides," 

 [Ibis, 1869, p. 26], gives a somewhat full account of Barra Head, 

 referring also to the previous accounts by Macgillivray [" British 

 Birds," vol. v., p. 351*]. Capt. Elwes, amongst other matter, 

 describes the method adopted by cragsmen on Barra for killing 

 the birds as they fly past, by an upward stroke of a long pole 

 " resting, end downwards, across the thigh." A similar method 

 is adopted at Ailsa Craig, as noted by Mr. B. Gray [" Birds of 

 West of Scotland," p. 43 6 j. 



u 



GUILLEMOT. Alca troile (Lin.). 



" The Guillemot, Razorbill, and Puffin keep their time to a 

 day in arriving at their place of hatching, which is upon the 5th 

 u of April. If the weather is stormy they remain upon the water 

 " awaiting the first favourable opportunity of landing. They all 

 " land at the same time, and make a great noise, quarrelling and 



* Rewritten, as before mentioned, from his own earlier notes, in 1830. 

 T For the purpose of distinguishing them, Mr. Maclachlan's notes, 

 placed within quotation marks, " ", while the additional remet£k^Xgf'£, /4 / 



distinguished by square brackets, [ ]. /•O^'rt©® 



(library 



