GANNETS AS FOOD 471 



enormous quantities of feathers were exported.* Fulmar 

 Petrels predominated, but doubtless the dark plumage of 

 the " Guga," or young Gannet, played no unimportant 

 part in the annual consignment. In 1877 Seton writes : 

 " The price paid by the present factor for feathers is, 

 per stone of 24lb., five shillings for grey, and six 

 shillings for black feathers, which it appears can be 

 sold in Edinburgh or Glasgow at from seven to eight 

 shillings per stone. "f 



From 1877 to 1897 the demand for sea-birds' fea.thers 

 appears to have been pretty steady. In 1894 Mr. Steele 

 Elliott found the factor for St. Kilda receiving about two 

 hundred stone yearly,! but since that date it has gradually 

 dwindled, and they became less worth gathering, while else- 

 where the trade has died out altogether. In 1900 a London 

 merchp.nt wrote to Mr. Harvie-Brown, that he could still 

 give ten shillings a stone for Gannets' feathers ; but now 

 the very name of SoIpji Goose seems to be forgotten in 

 the trade. § 



* " St. Kilda," by J. Wiglesworth, pp. 19, 50, 07. 



t "St. Kilda past and present," by G. Seton, 1878, p. 1.34. The black 

 feathers would have been principally Puffins' and Guillemots'. 



+ Equivalent to 90,000 birds the size of a Puffin (" Zoologist," 189.5, 

 p. 28.")), a truly prodigious slaughter ! 



§ Mr. Mackenzie, factor f o • St. Kilda, writes me that he still has the 

 produce of two seasons waiting for a purchaser. Gannets' feathers are 

 reckoned of no value in the Faeroes and Iceland (see pp. 209, 284). 



