CHAPTER V. 



ST. KILDA, SULISGEIR AND THE STACK. 



The St. Kilda Islands — Borrera, Stack Lii, Stack an Armine — 

 Early History of these three Settlements — Martin's Estimate 

 of the Gannets — Dr. Wiglesworth's Estimate — Sulisgeir — The 

 number of Gannets there — The Stack of Suliskerry. 



St. Kilda. 



The Early History of its Gannets. — Of all the Gannet 

 settlements that at St. Kilda is the most important, as it 

 is the most central.* Here every year a vast number of 

 these singular birds nest, and rear their young on three lofty- 

 island stacks, which. are all in close proximity to one another, 

 and forming part of the St. Kilda group. Our first knowledge 

 of the island of St. Kilda is comprised in two brief mentions 

 of it to be found in Fordun's celebrated " Scotichronicon," 

 of which the first passage tells almost nothing, but the 

 second — penned, perhaps, between 1360 and 1388 — while 

 making no mention of birds, draws attention to the half-wild 

 sheep which had been at some earlier period introduced 



* See map, p. 38. 



