ROCK-FOWLING IN ST. KILDA. 



upon a neighbour's rock are treated as serious offences, and punished 

 with as much severity as a felony. 



Some of the rocks which lie beyond the principal island are most 

 difficult to land upon : the adventurous fowlers who approach 

 them in boats incur very great risks : but nothing seems to daunt 

 them though they are in danger of staving their boat, and being 

 swept off the rocks the instant a footing is obtained : they manage 

 with extraordinary dexterity to effect a landing, which, though never 

 a dry one, they boldly attempt, clinging to the rock with hands and 

 feet, and often with their teeth besides, after leaping from the boat 

 when at the top of a wave. 



A singular method of fowling is used in Hirta, which is chiefly 

 performed by females,* with the assistance of dogs specially trained 

 to the pursuit. The only birds they capture in the manner about to 

 be described are puffins, which burrow under ground with their beaks, 

 and there deposit and hatch their eggs. 



The maids of Hirta make early morning excursions on the beach, 

 attended by a dog, which hunts the holes at the foot of the rocks 

 and about the shore : some of these dogs are so well trained, that 

 they never pass a hole containing a puffin's nest but they smell it out, 

 and capture the old bird without killing it or breaking the eggs. In 

 the cold weather, when these birds sit closely huddled together in 

 large numbers in the deep holes and clefts of the rocks, on one of the 

 little dogs being sent in, it seizes the first bird by its wing, and pro- 

 ceeds to drag it out; the bird, to save itself from persecution, lays hold 

 with its powerful beak of the wing of another, which, to save itself, 

 seizes the next ; this in like manner clings to its nearest neighbour, 

 and so on, the dog continuing to drag them out steadily. In this 

 way a whole string of puffins falls into the hands of the fowler, as 

 every bird from first to last grasps the one nearest to it, and so all 

 are dragged out one after another as if linked together. Thus 

 the wife or daughter of a family in the short time of an hour, or less, 

 secures sufficient provision to supply for one day or more, all the 

 inmates of her household. The family subsisting on the eggs of 

 the birds during the egging season, and their flesh at others : the 

 dog faring sumptuously on the bones. Every family throughout the 

 island has one at least of these little fowling dogs. The breed of the 

 animal is simply a mixture of the terrier and water-spaniel, and is 



* The maids of ancient Sparta were much employed in fowling. 



3 A 



