Mr John MacGillivray on the Island of St Kilda. 67 
vomiting, on being handled, a quantity of pure oil, which is 
carefully preserved by the fowlers, and the bird allowed to 
escape. It is only at sunset and about daybreak that I have 
observed the stormy petrel at sea, except during gloomy wea- 
ther, save once while crossing the Minch, being then not far 
from one of their breeding-places, at Dunvegan Head, in the 
Isle of Skye. 
Pufinus anglorum, the Shearwater, or Manx Petrel, is not 
uncommon in St Kilda, where it breeds in excavations formed 
by itself in the soft earth filling many of the fissures among 
the rocks. Comparatively few are taken by the fowlers, for 
it is never made a regular object of pursuit; and yet I have 
seen a bunch of several dozens brought by one of them from 
the island of Soay. It lays but a single egg, which I was told 
it deposits upon a slight nest of dried grass at the bottom of 
its burrow, where it spends most of the day, during which 
time few are to be seen, it being in a manner nocturnal in its 
habits. Its flight is very characteristic, and, joined to its 
dark colour, renders even a single individual very easy of de- 
tection, though among a flock of other birds and at a consi- 
derable distance. 
By far the most abundant species in St Kilda is the puffin, 
Mormon arcticus* (Buikir or Boujer), which breeds in the 
crevices of the rocks, as well as in artificial burrows in almost 
every situation, sometimes at a considerable distance from the 
water's edge. This bird is taken by the fowlers in two ways: 
when on its nest, by introducing the hand and dragging out 
the bird, at the risk of a severe bite ; and when sitting on the 
rocks, by means of a noose of horse-hair attached to a slender 
rod, generally formed of bamboo-cane (procured probably 
from some wreck). The latter mode of fowling is most suc- 
cessful in wet weather, as the puffins then sit best upon the 
rocks, allowing a person to approach within a few yards, and 
as many as 300 may be taken in the course of the day by an 
expert bird-catcher. 
Of all the St Kilda birds, the puffin probably affords the 
greatest amusement to the sportsman, as well from the rapi- 
* J obtained a nearly white variety when in St Kilda, 
