78 THE GANNET 



Hector Boethius (or Boece), in 1526, in his " 8cotorum 

 Historise a prima Gentis origine,"* in ^vhich there is the 

 following (translated) passage : " Ailsay ; quhair sicHk 

 plente of soland geis is, as we schew afore, in the Bass."t 



2. In 1549 Donald Monro, High Dean of the Isles {i.e., 

 Hebrides) thus alludes in his " Description of the Western 

 Isles of Scotland called Hybrides,'" through most of which 

 he travelled, to Ailsa Craig, which he spells Elsay : " Elsay an 

 iyl, ane myle lang, quherin is ane grate high hill, round and 

 roughe, and ane heavin [haven], and als [also] aboundance 

 of Soland geise." The " Description " is from the Dean's 

 narrative of his travels, the first printed issue of which is 

 stated to have been published in 1774, but there is no 

 reason for thinking that he had been on Ailsa, or he would 

 have told us more about it. Like Boethius he had some 

 informant, but I am at a loss to know where he could have 

 found a haven, of which there is now no trace, though the 

 Lighthouse Commissioners have erected a small wooden jetty. 



3. Next in order is the incidental mention by Bishop 

 Lesly in his work " De Origine," etc.^ (1578),§ from which 



* Vol. I., XLVI. Published at Paris in 1526, and translated ten years 

 later — the year of the author's death— by Bellenden. 



t Boece's account of the Bass will be given later. 

 J " De origine Moribus et i-ebus gestis Scotorum." 



§ Two years after this, 1580, Sir James Balfour writes " in this lylland 

 there is the ruins of ane old Castell and Chaj)ell, possest by the Earls of 

 Cassilis," but he says nothing of Soland Geese. 



