150 THE GANNET 



niultii)ly together in the same area. Here is a case in which 

 herrings, haddocks, pollack, saithe, etc., go on replenishing 

 their numbers year after year, in spite of the presence of 

 one of the largest — if not the very largest — armies of sea- 

 birds existing in the northern hemisphere. The inference, 

 it is plain, can only be that the fecundity of sea-fish, 

 which is under favourable circumstances something 

 altogether incredible, has shown itself for centuries to be 

 more than equal to the enormous demands made upon it 

 by the legions of birds at St. Kilda. Speculations may not 

 be worth much, but I venture to think that if half the 

 Gannets inhabiting the British Isles were destroyed, and 

 half the Shags and Puffins, it would not make any appreci- 

 able difference in the amount of fish left for human beings ! 



Sulisgeir. 



Its Early History. — We are not altogether ignorant of 

 the early history of this lonely rock, thanks to Dean Monro,* 

 who has left us his description of so many Scottish islands, 

 including Sulisgeir, which he calls Suilskeray, which is 

 its English equivalent. Sgeir, writes Professor Newton, 



* Donald Monro, High Dean of The Isles ; he travelled among them in 

 1549, but his account of them was not made pul)lic until 1774. Sulisgeir 

 is the last on his List, No. 209. His description of it has been made use 

 of in '.' Geographise Blavianse volumen sextum," 1662; for a transcript of 

 the passage I am indebted to Mr. H. S. Gladstone, 



