ST. KILDA 141 



the effect on its sloping table-like top is simply marvellous, 

 every place seeming to be occupied by a bird, adding that 

 when he got among them, the Gannets, greatly alarmed and 

 unable to use their wings, scrambled away down the cliff 

 in one confused struggling heap.* 



The first question which is before us is whether Martin's 

 high figures are reliable, and in considering them it must 

 be borne in mind that in 1696 St. Kilda had twice as many 

 inhabitants as it has now — about 180 — and the harvest 

 of sea-birds was almost their only means of sustenance. 

 Martin tells his readers that he judged 22,600 Gannets to 

 have been consumed by the people in one year — the year 

 1696.t This total was arrived at by " particular enquiry 

 after the Number of Solan Geese consumed by each Family," 

 a very proper mode of calculation if carried out correctly. 

 And in another place he says that Stack Lii alone furnished 

 five, six, or seven thousand Gannets in a year, according 

 as the weather permitted the men to collect them,:!: and that 

 altogether they had 500 " pyramids," or cairns of stones for 

 their fowls and eggs.§ And in his " Description of the 

 Western Islands of Scotland" (1703), he further says, 

 " the Inhabitants commonly keep yearly above twenty 



* This reminds one of Audubon's description, wliich lias boon conununly 

 held to be exaggerated {" Orn. Biography," IV^.)- 



t "Voyage to St. Kilda," p. Ho. | l). 40. § p. 114. 



