THE OUTER HEBRIDES 



Fair Isi^and. 



Midway between the Orkney and Shetland 

 groups is an island known as Fair Isle, which, 

 although it has no less than 130 inhabitants, is 

 practically shut off from the world. The steam- 

 ships that pass by on their way to lycrwick never 

 call for there is no sufficient harbour, and 

 the rocky coast is guarded by dangerous tidal 

 streams. Sometimes in very calm weather, a 

 considerate captain will stop his ship for awhile, 

 when small boats from the island will come along- 

 side, their occupants clamouring for discarded 

 newspapers, or other tidings from the world of 

 living men. 



Dr. Eagle Clarke may be said to have brought 

 the island into some prominence, for he discovered 

 in 1905 that it was an ideal spot for observing the 

 movements of migrant birds. Although it has 

 an area of only a few miles he has shown from his 

 investigations that it is visited by one half of the 

 birds that have ever been known to have occurred 

 in the British Isles, and he, himself, has recorded 

 from Fair Isle several species new to the British 

 list. 



" The island," Dr. Clarke writes, " is hardly 

 known to the general public, save perhaps as the 

 scene of the wreck, in the autumn of 1588, of 

 ' El Gran Grifon ' one of the ships of the Spanish 

 Armada, whose crew spent several months there 

 in a more or less starving condition, and in great 

 wretchedness, for the dwellings of the inhabitants 

 were then the filthiest hovels and the natives 

 poverty-stricken in the extreme. It can boast, 

 however, of having received some distinguished 

 visitors in the past, for Sir Walter Scott landed 

 there in August 14, 1814, and Mr. R. ly. Stevenson 

 paid a short visit in June 21, 1869." Some 

 years ago, attracted by the possibilities of 



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