CHAPTER LXVII. 



ROCK-FOWLING IN THE ORKNEY ISLANDS. 



" The wild sea roars and heaveth 

 On the granite crags below ; 

 And round about the misty isles 

 The fierce wild tempests blow. 



And let them blow ! roar wind and wave ! 



They shall not me dismay : 

 I've faced the eagle in her nest, 



And snatched her young away." 



Song of the Sea- fowler. 



A SIMILAR system of fowling' to that practised in Norway is pur- 

 sued in the Orkneys. Many of the poor inhabitants subsist chiefly, 

 during the spring 1 season, on the egg's of birds which nestle in the 

 lofty cliffs and rocks of those islands, the height of some of which is 

 above fifty fathoms ; and many of them are nearly perpendicular, 

 with here and there shelves or ledges, sufficient only for the birds to 

 roost and lay their eggs upon ; yet the venturous fowlers of those 

 islands ascend, pass intrepidly from one to the other, collect the 

 eggs and birds, and descend with the same indifference. 



These excursions are generally attempted from the table-land or 

 top of the precipice. The fowler is let down by a rope, in the same 

 manner and under precautions precisely similar to those already de- 

 scribed in the preceding chapter. 



The Orkney bird-men sometimes trust themselves to a post and a 

 single assistant, who lets his companion down, over stupendous pre- 

 cipices, with apparently careless incaution; and the rope is often 

 shifted from place to place along the cliff whilst the fowler, with his 

 game, is all the while suspended. 



Pennant, in his " Arctic Zoology," asserts, without authority or 



