212 THE GANNET 



translated for me by Professor Newton. This section 

 is entitled : " Nova / Fifse / Descriptio auctore Roberto 

 Gordonio .... Insula Bas." 



Translation of the Second Passage. 



" At the very toj) [of the Bass Rock] there is a small 

 chapel, and a very clear spring of water.* It hardly feeds 

 twenty sheep. In winter time they have no coals, but often 

 use the birds' nests for their hearths. Besides the birds 

 which we shall [presently] say that the Isle of May t produces, 

 it [the Bass] has one altogether marvellous. It is commonly 



* This spring which still yields a good supply of surface water can 

 hardly be said to be at the top of the rock, nor is the chapel, the walls of 

 which are still seen standing about half way vip. 



•j- The Isle of May. 



Of the Isle of May, we are told : — "The most common birds there haunting 

 are Skouts [Guillemots], Dunters [Eider ducks], Gtils, Kittiwax, the last 

 being about the size of a Dove is so called from the cry which it utters, 

 and is of better flavour than a Partridge. It is very greedily eaten in 

 the month of July. The Skout is less than a Duck and of the same colour, 

 and its flesh is hard ; however its eggs are bigger than Goose's, and boiled 

 hard are very good eaten with vinegar and rock-parsley. Their shells are 

 of a green colour, interspersed with black spots." The Island of May and 

 the Bass are in conjunction brought into a Macaronic Poem of 1694, 

 attributed to Drummond ; for a knowledge of this I am indebted to 

 Mr. J. T. Curry :— 



Maia ubi sheapi-feda atque ubi solgoosifera Bassa 

 Swellant in pelago ...... 



Quo viso, ad fochtte noisam cecidere volucres, 

 Ad terram cecidere grues, plish plashque dedere 

 Sol-goosae in polago prope littora Bruntiliana. 



The Isle of May is about ten miles from the Bass Rock. 



