SEA-BIRD NUMBERS AND MAN 69 



east of the island of Fogo, in the latitude of 50° north. Innumerable 

 flocks of sea-fowl breed upon it every summer, which are of great 

 service to the poor inhabitants of Fogo; who make voyages there 

 to load with birds and eggs. When the water is smooth, they make 

 their shallop fast to the shore, lay their gang-boards from the gun- 

 wale of the boat to the rocks, and then drive as many penguins on 

 board as she will hold ; for, the wings of those birds being remark- 

 ably short, they cannot fly. But it has been customary of late years, 

 for several crews of men to live all the summer on that island, 

 for the sole purpose of killing birds for the sake of their feathers, 

 the destruction which they have made is incredible. If a stop is 

 not soon put to that practice, the whole breed will be diminished 

 to almost nothing, particularly the penguins: for this is now the 

 only island they have left to breed upon; all others lying so near to 

 the shores of Newfoundland, they are continually robbed. The 

 birds which the people bring from thence, they salt and eat, in 

 lieu of salted pork. It is a very extraordinary thing (yet a certain 

 fact) that the Red, or Wild Indians, of Newfoundland should 

 every year visit that island; for, it is not to be seen from the Fogo 

 hills, they have no knowledge of the compass, nor ever had any 

 intercourse with any other nation, to be informed of its situation. 

 How they came by their information, will most hkely remain a 

 secret among themselves." 



Nobody knows when the Norse-Gaels of St. Kilda came first to 

 Hirta, their main island, and established Britain's most interesting 

 colony of wildfowlers. Certainly by 1549 there was a stable human 

 community on St. Kilda, whose life was based to a large extent on 

 "wyld foullis" (D. Monro, 1774). In about 1682 the Lord Register, 

 Sir George M'Kenzie of Tarbat, gave an account (18 18) of St. Kilda 

 to Sir Robert Sibbald. He probably did not visit St. Kilda himself, 

 but he says: "There be many sorts of . . . fowls; some of them of strange 

 shapes, among which there is one they call the Gare fowl, which is 

 bigger than any goose, and hath eggs as big almost as those of the 

 Ostrich. Among the other commodities they export out of the island, 

 this is none of the meanest. They take the fat of these fowls that frequent 

 the island, and stuff' the stomach of this fowl with it, which they 

 preserve by hanging it near the chimney, where it is dryed with 

 the smoke, and they sell it to their neighbours on the continent, 

 as a remedy they use for aches and pains." 



