THE FAROES AND ICELAND 281 



depriving them of food, may at times starve them,* as not 

 infrequently happens in the case of Razorbills and Guille- 

 mots. f 



Modern History. The Westmann Islands. — It will have been 

 gathered that there are, and long have been, two Gannet 

 settlements on the south coast of Iceland, which, though 

 well-known to Icelanders, have been very rarely visited by 

 any others ; these are the Gannetry on the Westmann Islands 

 (Vestmann Eyjar) and one on Eldey,} which is one of a 

 group of islands known as the " Fuglasker " or " Fugleskiser. " 

 I am indebted to my relative, Mr. Eustace Gurney, who 

 visited the Westmann Islands in 1898 with Mr. Nelson 

 Annandale, and to what Mr. Annandale has himself 

 written about Iceland,§ for all I can here say about the 

 Westmann Isles Gannets. Mr. Gurney and Mr. Annandale 



* Of which an instaiice is given in " Ornithologie Europeenne," par 

 C. D. Degland et Z. Gerbe (1867), II., p. 348. 



t -See "Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc, Glasgow," I., pp. 2, 4, and Shepherd's 

 "North-West Peninsula of Iceland," pp. 42, 77. 



X In Danish "Melssekken" — Anglice, mealsack — from the whiteness 

 caused by the birds' excreta on the island. A good deal of information 

 about Eldey, in connection with the Great Auk, is given in the "Ibis" 

 (1861, p. 374), and "Natural History Review" (October, 1865) : it is only 

 thirteen miles from the mainland. 



§ In the "Field Naturalist's Quarterly," (1904, p. 24,) and in "The 

 Fseroes and Iceland " (1905), p. 121. 



