BIRDS' NESTING SEASON 137 



any island in either Orkney or Shetland half-way 

 between the two groups; the other the wildest and 

 most precipitous in either in the open Atlantic, some 

 twenty miles or so to the west of the Mainland of 

 Shetland. 



But twelve days, or at most a fortnight, was all that 

 we could conveniently spare, and of these three had 

 already gone before we set foot on shore in Lerwick on 

 Sunday evening. 



It is only in very calm days that a landing can be 

 effected on either Fair Island or Foula, and as the 

 weather, which for the fortnight before our arrival had 

 been unusually warm and still for the time of year, had 

 broken, and the ' Beltane Ree,' of which before leaving 

 home we had read with some misgivings in Dr. 

 Edmondston's Glossary of Shetland Words, as ' a track 

 of stormy weather common in the Islands about Whit- 

 suntide,' was to all appearance upon us, we were obliged 

 to give up all notions of anything more ambitious than 

 a visit to one or two of the more easily accessible of the 

 chief breeding-places, and to the castle of Mousa, which 

 we were especially anxious to see. 



The welcome breeze which had blown away the fog 

 had, since it first sprang up on Whitsunday, been 

 steadily freshening, and by Monday morning, when we 

 started for Noss, an island lying outside Bressay, half a 

 gale was blowing. 



It was some little time before we succeeded in getting 

 a boat to carry us over the Sound, but at last one was 

 found, and by eleven o'clock we were landed on the 



