54 The Shetlands in the 



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 Whit-Sunday, been 

 steadily freshening, and by Monday morning, when 

 we started for Noss, an island lying outside Bressa, 

 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 other side, with luncheon in our pockets 

 and clothes comparatively dry. A pleasant walk of 

 three or four miles leads from the landing-place to 

 the point of Bressa, opposite the shepherd's house 

 in Noss, where there is a ferry between the two 

 islands ; and half-way across, as we sauntered along, 

 interested by such un-Londonish sights as women 

 harnessed to harrows, or carrying heavy loads of peat 

 from the hills in straw baskets hanging from their 

 shoulders, knitting as they went, we were delighted 

 at seeing for the first time, near a freshwater lake, 

 a party of Richardson's Skuas the birds which more 

 than any others were responsible for bringing us over 

 land and sea eight hundred miles and more from 

 London. We knew that they bred regularly in 

 Mousa, some fifteen miles to the south, and on some 

 of the more northerly islands, but had not expected 

 to find them in Bressa or Noss ; and the first sight 

 of their long, thin, sharp-cut, angular wings, and the 

 two unmistakable long pin feathers springing from 

 the middle of the tail, and the powerful, graceful flight 

 of the birds as they circled round, playfully chasing 



