THE BASS ROCK 187 



de rariorum animalium atq : stirpium historia," liber unus, 

 1570. I need not give the Latin. 



TRANSLATION. 



" Of the Brent Goose.* .... It [i.e., the Brent] is not, 

 therefore, the Bass Goose of the Scots, which has its nest 

 and eggs on the Bass, a Scottish Isle, and thence takes its 

 name. Now, when at a certain season of the year the Geese 

 are about to return to this precipitous island rock — not so 

 big on the top as a Kite could hover over (as the poet has 

 said), but very small — it would be too long to recount what 

 spying, what circumspection (scouts having been sent ahead) 

 they use before they alight ; at what time of year they do 

 this, the solitary state of the isle, when the inhabitants shut 

 themselves up for several days, until the Geese have settled 

 down, lest they should drive them off, in what numbers and 

 in what a throng they fly to it, so that in clear weather 

 they obscure the sun, how many fishes they bring home, 

 how many eggs they lay, and what profit the dwellers on 

 the isle make annually from the feathers and the oil of these 

 Geese (for they possess the fatness and the taste of Pupins)." 



Caius' account appears to have been adapted from the 

 authors already quoted, as he refers to nothing which they 

 have not mentioned, except it be where he compares 

 Gannets to Puffins in respect of their fatness. Like Turner, 



* The " Brent Goose " of Caius is what is now called a Bernicle Goose. 



