VI. 

 A VISIT TO ST. KILDA. 



A VISIT to St. Kilda, to do the thing thoroughly, 

 is by no means an unmixed pleasure. In the first 

 place, the means of transit are few, always excepting 

 the splendidly appointed pleasure steamers that visit 

 the island at intervals throughout the summer from 

 Glasgow, but which are of little use to the man 

 bent on studying the place, the people, and its 

 birds; for not even a landing on the famous ocean 

 rocks is guaranteed, and the boats leave the Clyde 

 at a time of year when, from an ornithologist's 

 point of view, most of the attraction is over. Even 

 when the difficulty of transit is overcome, the visitor 

 upon his arrival must be prepared to rough it, for 

 there is no accommodation of any kind. P^jr many 

 years my ambition had been to visit this unrivalled 

 bird-station, the former home of the now extinct 

 Great Auk, and the present haunt of the Fulmar, 

 the Fork-tailed Petrel, and the Shearwater, At 

 last through the kindness of my friend, Mr. J. T. 

 Mackenzie of Dunvegan, the factor of St. Kilda, I 



