AILSA CRAIG 81 



This description of a Gannet feast does not sound very 

 appetising, but the story makes one wish that Brereton had 

 landed upon the Craig, to which, as Professor Newton 

 judges from the journal, he would have been opposite on 

 the mainland about the first week in July. I have not 

 elsewhere met with the name Solan spelt " Solemne," 

 and this peculiar spelling may possibly be a copyist's 

 error. 



6. Mr. John Paterson, to whom I am indebted for 

 much other information, has furnished a reference to 

 William Abercrummie's " Description of Carrick [the 

 southern district of Ayrshire] in 1696."* Here the reader 

 is apprised of there being on Ailsa Craig " Store of Solan 

 Geese in so great plenty, that the very poorest of the people 

 eat of them in their season at easie rates : besides other 

 sea-fowles, which are brought from Ailsa, of the bigness 

 of ducks, and of the taste of Solan Geese, and are called 

 Alhanacks, or Ailsa Cocks, and Tarnathans, of which there 

 is so great a multitude about that Isle, that when, by the 

 shot of a piece, they are put upon the wing, they will 

 darken the heavens above the spectators. This Ailsa is 



* " Historic Ayrshire," 1891, edited by William Robertson, Vol. I., 

 p. 8G. 



