THE BIRDS OF ST KILDA 221 



by the inexhaustible stores of eggs that must every 

 moment fall in their way. This must be the case in 

 summer. How they procure their food in winter is a 

 question which one will find some greater difficulty in 

 resolving, unless we take it for granted that they make 

 frequent excursions into the neighbouring isles." Un- 

 fortunately we do not know the date of the banishment 

 of this bird from the isles so eminently suited for its 

 home, but Wilson (ii., p. 72), who visited St Kilda in 

 1841, tells us that ** there are now no Eagles either on 

 the main island or its dependencies." Milner, however, 

 mentions it as one of the birds seen by his party on 

 15th June 1847, perhaps on the word of the notorious 

 David Graham, of York, who formed one of the company. 

 The Rev. Neil Mackenzie (p. 76) describes it as an 

 occasional visitor, which would seem to indicate that it 

 had ceased to be a native before his induction to the 

 island in 1829. Steele Elliot (p. 282) tells us that the 

 site of the eyrie was on the Connacher cliffs, whose 

 height is 1260 feet. 



^ Falco candicans, Greenland Falcon. — Finlay 

 McQueen informed me that in the early spring of 19 10 

 he surprised, by coming upon it suddenly, a Falcon much 

 larger than a Peregrine, and of a pure white colour with 

 dark markings. There can be no doubt that the bird 

 seen was a Greenland Falcon — a species which was 

 unusually numerous in various parts of Scotland in the 

 early months of the year named. 



Falco peregrinus. Peregrine Falcon. — Martin (p. 

 46) writes: ''Hawks extraordinary good ; " and in his 

 Western Isles of Scotland says, that "this Isle produces 

 the finest hawks in the Western Isles, for they go many 

 leagues for their prey, there being no land-fowl in St 



