150 BRITISH SEA BIRDS. 
fish in taste. More than two hundred years ago 
Ligon, in his Azstory of Barbadoes, complains of 
the ill taste of Puffins which he had received 
from the Scilly Islands (once a great centre of 
exportation of these birds), and asserts that this kind 
of food is only for servants. The taste for salted 
and dried Puffin, however, still lingers in the land; 
for at St. Kilda vast numbers are caught, and so 
preserved by the natives for food, Dried Puffin, 
perhaps a twelvemonth old, is one of the few 
delicacies of the island; whilst the feathers help 
materially to pay the rent! 
