196 THE GANNET 



peculiar way of writing Solan was presumably a joke on his 

 part. 



16. " Britannia," by William Camden. Translation by 

 Philemon Holland. (1610.) 



Holland, the editor of this edition of the " Britannia," 

 in speaking of the Bass Rock, has some observations 

 which are perhaps original : — " What a multitude of sea 

 foules, and especially of those geese which they call scoutes 

 and soland geese flocke hither at their times, for, by report, 

 their number is such that in a cleere day they take away 

 the sunnes light ; what a sort of fishes they bring, for, as 

 the speech goeth, a hundred garison souldiours* that here lay 

 for the defence of the place fed upon no other meat but the 

 fresh fish that they brought in ; . . . ." 



17. In the Household Books of Lord William Howard of 

 Naworthf, one of the border castles of Cumberland, distant 

 from the Bass Rock about sixty miles, we find among other 

 " Rewards " [i.e., payments) for provisions, under date of 

 August 14th, 1624 : — " To the Lord Crainston's man bringing 

 iiij SolamosseJ geese iijs. iiijd." And again on August 23rd, 

 1633: — "To 2 boyes bringinge 10 sollemgeese from my 

 Lord Cranston, xs." 



* De Beaugue says a liundred and twenty, see p. 184. 



t See "Surtees Society," LXVIII., p. 214. 



J This spelling may be a mis-reading, Professor Skeat is tolerably sure 

 that there is no such suffix as "esse" in any English of any date. 



