DESTRUCTION FOR SKINS AND OIL 171 



manufactured into oil, during centuries a necessity for light 

 and heat to the dwellers on the more remote parts of the 

 coast, the flesh was often used as food. In particular the 

 Solan Goose and Fulmar were invaluable in supplying both 

 food and oil to the natives of their haunts, especially in the 

 isolated outer islands. The inhabitants of the Bass Rock, in 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century, were accustomed 

 to obtain ten gallons Scots of oil drawn from the fat of 

 the Solan. 



For the most telling illustrations of ruthless and deadly 

 destruction of oil-bearing creatures, the enquirer must look 

 beyond the coasts of Scotland. In 1868 a few American 

 whaling ships turned their attention to the Walrus (Odobenus 

 rosmarus\ which yields about 20 gallons of oil, and finding 

 it an easy prey, each ship accounted for from 200 to 600 

 individuals. The result was that in succeeding years more 

 ships followed suit, so that in 1870 the American whaling 

 fleet is believed to have destroyed not fewer than 50,000 

 Walruses 1 . At the same time American traders were pursuing 

 with easy energy the Penguins of the southern Ocean, so 

 that small vessels specially fitted out for the work returned 

 after a six weeks' cruise with 25,000 to 30,000 gallons of oil, 

 and this, since eleven birds yield only a gallon, represented 

 a slaughter of some 300,000 birds to each ship. Or take the 

 case of the Turtle: Bates, in his Naturalist on the Amazon, 

 records how its eggs are collected for the oil they contain, 

 and estimates the destruction at 48,000,000 a year. 



Although Scotland can instance no such appalling de- 

 struction of life, nevertheless the demand for oil proved a 

 constant drain upon her more slender resources. 



SEALS 



So long ago as the days of St Columba, the Monastery 

 of lona reserved for itself a small island lying off the coast, 

 whereon a colony of Seals was protected in order that the 

 monks should be furnished with food and with oil to lighten 

 the dark days of winter (see p. 222). On other parts of the 

 coast, also, regular seal fisheries -were engaged in in former 

 times, for we learn, from a charter of David I to the 



1 This destruction was reflected in our fauna, for since the middle of 

 the nineteenth century the occasional appearance of the Walrus on the 

 coasts of Scotland has ceased. 



