THE BASS ROCK 207 



" We saw of the scouts' eggs, which are very large and 

 speckled. It is very dangerous to climb the rocks for the 

 young of these fowls, and seldom a year passeth but one 

 or other of the climbers fall down and lose their lives, as did 

 one not long before our being there. The laird of this island 

 [the Earl of Lauderdale] makes a great profit yearly of 

 the soland geese taken ; as I remember, they told us 1301. 

 sterling.* There is in the isle a small house, which they 

 call a castle ; " 



The narrative of the journey of these two pioneers of 

 ornithology, and one or two friends — most of it, perhaps, 

 made on horsebackf — brings the past back vividly. One 

 can imagine them following the coast road from Dunbar, 

 probably where it goes now, their halt at Tantallon Castle, 

 which had been partially battered down twenty-two years 

 before, and their rapture over the Bass as their horses draw 

 near to Canty Bay. Francis Willughby was twenty-six and 

 John Ray thirty-three, but their youth only makes the 

 accuracy of their observations the more meritorious. 

 Willughby only survived this memorable journey by eleven 

 years, dying in 1672, having published little beyond a few 



* English money, as " sterling" is added; Ray alludes to Scotch money 

 further on (t.c, p. 161). 



t That they started on horseback is clear, for at Peterborough tlie 

 cathedral choristers made them pay money for coming into the choir witli 

 their spurs on. 



