182 BRITISH BIRDS. 



People in this Habitable globe, viz., That they themselves 

 do not know how happy they are, and how much they 

 are above the Avarice and Slavery of the rest of 

 mankind." 



Enough perhaps has been quoted to show the nature 

 of this somewhat rare and curious book, the precursor 

 of many others dealing with St. Kilda and the Scottish 

 Islands. Among which may be mentioned the Rev. A. 

 Buchan's " Description of St. Kilda, the most remote 

 Western Isle of Scotland," published in Edinburgh, 

 1741 ; the Rev. Kenneth Macaulay's " A Voyage to and 

 History of St. Kilda," London, 1764 ; an anonymous 

 work entitled " A Voyage to Scotland, the Orkneys and 

 the Western Isles of Scotland," London, 1751 ; and the 

 " Travels in the Western Hebrides : from 1782 to 1790," 

 London, 1793, by the Rev. John Lane Buchanan [in no 

 way to be confounded with George Buchanan (1506-1582), 

 the Scotch historian], which last work affords us the 

 pleasing statement that : — 



" The Gare Fowl is four feet long, and supposed to 

 be the pigeon of South America." 



And so farewell to Martin Martin ; would that he had 

 noted more of what he saw in St. Kilda when he set out 

 for that almost " unknown land," having, as he tells us, 

 *' embark'd at the Isle of Esay in Hawies the 29th of 

 May, at six in the Afternoon, 1697. The Wind at S.E." 



