40 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



and the St. Kildans have a pai'ticiilarly primitive 

 and, I might add, extravagant metliod of capturing 

 them which I had the good fortune to see in opera- 

 tion. A sick man had expressed a fancy for some 

 broth made from a piece of Soa lamb, and, as we 

 were "foino^ to work the island with camera and 

 note-book, we took a dog or two in the l^oat with 

 us. These dogs had their fangs broken, and by 

 the aid of their Ijarefooted masters, who sprang 

 from rock to rock with great nimbleness and not 

 a little excitement, literally ran down one of the 

 timid creatures. As the sheep raced madly round 

 the little island, they came close past where I stood, 

 and the way they bounded from crag to crag, and 

 skipped in single file along dangerous ledges, was 

 simply astonishing. 



My brother set up his camera and tried to 

 photograph tliem as they passed him in full career, 

 but the com2)arative slowness of his apparatus, an 

 instantaneous shutter, and the great speed at which 

 the animals were travelling, produced nothing but 

 elonofated marks of confusion a":ainst the g-reat 

 grey rocks on the negative. He did, however, 

 succeed in making a picture of a lamb caught by 

 one of the dogs and held until its master came 

 upon the scene. This barbarous metliod of catch- 

 ing the sheep invariably ends in some of the 

 terrified creatures o-oino- over the cb'ifs and beino- 

 swept away by the fierce tides iiowing in those 

 quarters. The factor told me that he had volun- 

 teered to supply the people with nets, in order that 

 they might catcli the shee]) with more liumanity 

 and less waste of life, l)ut liis offer was declined. 

 The}' preferred the good old metliods that supplied 

 plenty of danger and excitement — two forms of enter- 

 tainment very dear to tlie impulsive Celtic lunu-t. 



