340 THE GANNET 



seems that anything and everything found at sea comes 

 handy, including straw, which Mr. W. Evans has seen used 

 as have I.* 



In his " Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,"^ 

 Martin says : — " . . . the steward of St. Kilda, told me, 

 that they had found a red coat in a nest, a brass sundial, 

 and an arrow,{ and some Molucca Beans in another 

 nest."§ A coat must have been a heavy item to 

 carry up to a nest, but I was told at the Bass of a good- 

 sized basket, intended for bottles, which had been conveyed 

 to one. Sticks and pieces of wood and even small 

 branches, are sometimes picked up and used,l| but perhaps 

 not so much as formerly, when the garrison on the 

 Bass Rock were glad enough to collect them from the 

 nests of the birds for fuel, as old writers testify, one of 

 whom. Hector Boece (1526), tells us that "... thay gadder 

 sa great noumer of treis and stikkis to big thair nestis, 

 that the samin micht be sufficient fewell to the keparis of 

 the castell, howbeit thay had na uthir provision." And 



* See p. 241. 



f Published in 1703. 



X p. 283. 



§ It is likely that this arrow, and also one found in the neck of a Great 

 Northern Diver in Ireland (Thompson's " Birds of Ireland," III., p. 201), 

 were of Indian or Esquimaux origin. 



II See Gray's "Birds of the West of Scotland," p. 461. 



