aoe LARUS MARINUS. 
arude sketch’.] There are pulleys in the posts, and the ropes, which 
are very good, and of considerable thickness, are very firmly and 
securely fastened. The cradle runs rather down hill to the holm. 
There seemed to me a greater feeling of msecurity or giddiness than 
in rock-climbing, and without assistance there is some risk in getting 
in and out of it, for as it is on a slope it may suddenly shde away on 
being touched, if it is not done with great care. It was not slung in 
1848 or in 1850. 
§ 4616. Zwo.—Orkney, 1850. From Mr. George Harvey, of 
Stromness. 
§ 4617. One.—Ferde, 1850. From Sysselmand Winther. 
§ 4618. Three. 
Orkney, 1851. From Mr. G. Harvey. 
§ 4619. Stv—Feeroes, 1852. From Sysselmand Miller. 
* [Rough as is this sketch, I doubt not it is pretty accurate, and I reproduce it 
here (p. 351), since, so far as I know, the only tigure of the “Cradle of Noss,” of 
which so many authors have written, is that given by Pennant in the “ Introduction ” 
to his ‘ Arctic Zoology’ (vol. i. pl. iv. p. xxx) from a drawing taken by Low in 1774, 
which must be deemed rather fanciful, while the plate was wrongly lettered “ Bird 
Catching at Orkney,” though in the text Noss is rightly assigned to Shetland. In 
his day “the machine called a cradle” had “a bottom of ropes” (Tour through the 
Islands of Orkney and Schetland, &c., by George Low, edited by Joseph Anderson. 
Kirkwall: 1879, p. 192); but it will be seen from Mr. Wolley’s sketch that bars or 
slats of wood had been substituted, and the pulleys appear to have been a modern 
improvement. According to Messrs. Evans and Buckley (Vertebr. Fauna of 
Shetland, p. 183) the use of the cradle was given up in 1864, but in their volume 
there is a fine view, from a photograph by Mr. Norrie, of the fissure which separates 
the Holm from the main island. The width of this chasm, as well as the height of 
the cliff, has been variously stated, and some of the estimates are obviously 
exaggerated. The former, on information kindly furnished by Sir Archibald 
Geikie, is 99 feet, and the latter about 160. The flat top of the Holm covers more 
than two acres and a half, and afforded excellent grazing for the sheep which were 
formerly conveyed to and from it in the cradle. This contrivance is known to have 
existed before 1633, being mentioned in Monteith’s Manuscript of that year, 
published by Sibbald in 1711 (reprinted Edinburgh: 1845, p. 63); but, Mr. Wolley 
excepted, I am not aware of any traveller, naturalist or otherwise, having availed 
himself of it to reach the top. Both in 1897 and 1898 I saw Great Black-backed 
Gulls at the Holm of Noss; but no great number of them.—Eb. | 
