THE BASS ROCK 195 



and leyne, linkable to any man's meitt, as alsua quhen they 

 returne anys in the zeir, hame agane to the He are unhable 

 to the nurischement of ony persoun." 



That such a specification of private rights should have 

 been necessary is a further testimony to the value of 

 the Gannets. 



14. U. Aldrovandi Ornithologiae, Tom. tertius. Lib. 

 XIX., p. 162 (1599-1603). Chapter xx. is here devoted 

 to " The Bass or Scottish Goose," but the account of it is 

 all copied from Boece and Gesner ; the figure which was 

 never intended for a Gannet, though so ascribed by Jonston, 

 has already been commented on.* 



Seventeenth Century. — 15. Having now done with the 

 sixteenth century writers, we come to John Taylor, the poet,t 

 who in 1618 found himself stopping at Adam, or Auldhame, 

 a hamlet not far from the Bass Rock, where it appears from 

 this entry in his journal that his entertainment was to his 

 satisfaction : — " Amongst our viands that wee had there, 

 I must not forget the Sole and Goose, a most delicate 

 fowl, which breeds in great aboundance in a little rocke 

 called the Basse, which stands two miles into the sea. . . . 

 The Lord or owner of the Basse doth profit at the least 

 two hundred pound yeerely by those geese." The poet's 



* See p. 32. 



t "Works of John Taylor, the water-poet," Hindley's Edition, 1872, 

 p. 60. 



O 2 



