38S HISTORY OF 



The gull, in general, as was said, builds on the ledges of rocks, 

 and lays fron; one egg to three, in a nest formed of long grass 

 and sea-weed. Most of the kind are fishy tasted, with black 

 stringy flesh ; yet the young ones are better food : and of these, 

 with several other birds of the penguin kind, the poor inhabi- 

 tants of our northern islands make their wretched banquets. 

 They have been long used to no other food ; and even salted 

 gull can be relished by those who know no better. Almost ak 

 delicacy is a relative thing ; and the man who repines at the 

 luxuries of a well-served table, starves not for want, but from 

 comparison. The luxuries of the poor are indeed coarse to us, 

 yet still they are luxuries to those ignorant of better; and it 

 is probable enough that a Kilda or a Feroe man may be found 

 to exist, outdoing Apicius himself in consulting the pleasures 

 of the table. Indeed, if it be true that such meat as is the most 

 dangerously earned is the sweetest, no men can dine so luxu- 

 riously as these, as none venture so hardily in the pursuit of a 

 dinner. In Jacobson's History of the Feroe islands, we have 

 an account of the method in which those birds are taken •, and 

 I will deliver it in his own simple manner. 



" It cannot be expressed with what pains and danger they 

 take these birds in those high steep cliffs, whereof many are tvi^o 

 hundred fathoms high. But there are men apt by nature, and 

 fit for the work, who take them usually in two manners ; they 

 either climb from below into these high promontories, that are 

 as steep as a wall ; or they let themselves down with a rope from 

 above. When they climb from below, they have a pole five or 

 six ells long with an iron hook at the end, which they that are 

 below in the boat, or on the cliff, fasten unto the man's girdle, 

 helping him up thus to the highest place where he can get foot- 

 ing; afterwards they also help up another man; and thus seve- 

 ral climb up as high as they possibly can ; and, where they find 

 difficulty, they help each other up, by thrusting one another up 

 with their poles. When the first hath taken footing, he draws 

 the other up to him, by the rope fastened to his waist ; and so 

 they proceed, till they come to the place where the birds build. 

 They there go about as well as they can in those dangerous 

 places ; the one holding the rope at one end, and fixing himself 

 to the rock; the other going at the other end from place to 

 place. If it should happen that he chiinccth to fall, the other 



