186 ST. KILDA FKOM WITHOUT 



ending abruptly on the upper part of the beak. What 

 is given to the wing is taken from legs. A Fulmar in 

 confinement, even if it can be induced to feed, com- 

 monly dies almost at once of cramp in the thighs. 



When poor Lady Grange called St. Kilda a ' stinking' 

 isle, she used the word probably in a more literal sense 

 than that attached to it in the ordinary schoolboy's 

 vocabulary. The Fulmar is a living keg of strong, 

 musty, scented oil, the smell of which is said to pervade 

 the whole island and everything in and about it. The 

 eggs, which in shape and colour are not unlike large, 

 finely-grained, and very white and thin-shelled hen's 

 eggs, retain the smell for years, strongly enough, when 

 a drawer is opened containing one of them, to scent the 

 entire room. 



Three years running, with the special object of seeing 

 the gathering of the Fulmars, we had perseveringly 

 planned expeditions to St. Kilda. In 1889, inquiries, 

 which failed in the end, as the locality is not popular 

 with shipowners, were made for a steamer to take a 

 party of congenial spirits for a few weeks' exploration. 

 The next year a humbler programme berths had 

 been engaged in the earliest tourist boat. But as for 

 two days before the time fixed for sailing a gale had 

 been blowing, it seemed useless to rush off to Oban with 

 the almost certainty of getting no farther. The third 

 attempt was to be the lucky one, and everything looked 

 well. The census was to be taken at the end of June, the 

 height of the breeding season, and one of Her Majesty's 

 ships, with a spare cabin, was told oft' for the trip. 



