A SHEEP FOB HALF-A-CROWX. 41 



Tlie loss occasioned by sheep being* Ijlown over 

 the cliffs is considerable, but in Soa this is to a 

 great extent compensated by the remarkable fecun- 

 dity of the animals. Macaulay says that he was 

 told a single ewe added nine sheep to the flock 

 in thirteen months. " She had brought three lambs 

 in the month of March, three more in the same 

 month the year after, and each of the iirst three 

 had a young one before they had been thirteen 

 months old." 



Clipping-shears are unknown in St. Kilda, and 

 the wool that does not drop off or cannot be pulled 

 off the backs of the sheep is cut away Avith j^ocket- 

 knives. 



My friend Mackenzie told me that the people 

 wanted to cross the original breed of Soa sheep 

 with Scotch black-faced ones, but that MacLeod, of 

 MacLeod, the proprietor, had very naturally objected, 

 and taken the island over himself. He said that 

 when folks talked of half-a-crown as being the 

 remarkably low figure at which a whole sheep 

 might be purchased in the Antipodes, they little 

 dreamed that there Avere peoj)le in the British Isles 

 paying only the same price for the best and sweetest 

 mutton in the world, as MacLeod only charges the 

 St. Kildans two shillings and sixpence for each 

 sheep they take away from Soa to kill. 



Whilst passing round the back of St. Kilda one 

 day in a boat I noticed a curious heap of stones 

 on a grass-clad ledge far down the face of the awe- 

 some cliff ; and as the collection looked, too regular 

 for a mere accidental gathering I asked how it 

 came there, and was told that the wee cairn had 

 been piled up by a man who was lowered by means 

 of a long rope every autumn on to the handbreadth 

 of rock with a sheep which he left to browse on 



