THE BASS ROCK 217 



present money, or nearly three-halfpence a Gannet, but 

 Prof. Hume Brown has no doubt that English money is here 

 intended, as it is marked sterling, in which case the 

 Gannets were one shilling and fivepence each. 



We see how this price of seventeen pence a Gannet can be 

 made to fit in with the following item of just the same date, 

 which is taken from the journals of a Sir John Lauder in 1675,* 

 for doubtless the slight discrepancy is sufficiently accounted 

 for by the difference in wholesale and retail value : — 

 " For botle aill . . . . . . . . 4 pence. 



For a solen goose . . . . . . 29 ,, 



For a mutskin of seek .. ..10 ,, t 



26. " Francisci Willughbeii Ornithologise Libri Tres." 

 (1676.) Pp. 15, 247. English edition. (1678.) Pp. 18, 328. 



Ray's " Itinerary " has been already laid under contri- 

 bution, but a few items of additional information are found 

 here. Ray observes in the celebrated " Ornithology," which 

 was jointly the work of himself and his friend, that when he 

 and Willughby were at the Bass " near Mid-August [Aug. 

 19th, 1661] all the other Birds were departed, only the Soland 

 Geese remained upon the Island, their young being not yet 

 fully grown and fledg'd,"- — the same circumstance which 



* Printed for the Scottish History Society, Vol. XXXVI. (1900) 

 extract and reference fiirnislied by Mr. H. S. Aldis. 



f The Household Book of Tayniouth, 1590 — 1626 contains no mention 

 of Gannets. 



