REFERENCES TO BIRD-LIFE OF THE ISLE OF MAY 55 



men bore a date I unfortunately must have omitted to make 

 a note of it. 



A reference to the article on Anstruther- Wester in the 

 Neiv Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ix., 1845, P- 612, 

 yields only a verbatim repetition of the passage which has 

 already been quoted from the Account of 1792. In the same 

 volume, p. 942, the Isle of May is also mentioned under the 

 parish of Crail, but there is nothing concerning its feathered 

 inhabitants beyond the general remark that "about June 

 and July immense numbers of birds breed their young upon 

 the ledges of its western precipices." 



In the Transactions of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, 

 vol. ii., No. 6 (1848), p. 275, there is a note by Archibald 

 Hepburn on the " bridled " variety of the Guillemot, in which 

 he alludes to it as being " pretty common on the Isle of May." 



MacGillivray, in his British Birds, vol. v., 1852, pp. 337 

 and 645, includes the Isle of May among the nesting places 

 of the Black Guillemot and the Arctic Tern, but he does not 

 exactly say this was based on personal observation, though 

 the words he uses in the first case might convey that impres- 

 sion. Presumably he was aware of Jardine's records, yet he 

 does not allude to the May in connection with any of the 

 other Terns. 



In his entertaining book Sporting Days, 1866, 1 John 

 Colquhoun devotes a chapter to " Sea-fowl Shooting in the 

 Firth of Forth," in which he narrates (pp. 21-32) the incidents 

 of a two days' trip he and one of his sons made, early in 

 April 1864, to the Isle of May in a North Berwick fishing 

 smack, for the express purpose of adding the Black Guillemot, 

 and "the great cormorant when dignified by his credentials," 

 to his collection. There is no need to quote him at length : 

 suffice it to say that, on the first day, a Shag one of a pair 

 dislodged from a cavern on the west side of the island was 

 shot, a pair of Peregrines "flew out screaming from their 

 eyrie," and an unsuccessful attempt was made to obtain one 

 of a row of " Letter-o'-marques" 2 drawn up on their night 



1 See also The Field Tor 1364, p. 325. 



2 A fisherman's name for a Cormorant showing white patches on the 

 thighs. 



