QUADRUPEDS. 
THESE IsLEs ONCE 
WOODED, 
SCRE T L'A ND!) “AND 
often fails, and the adventurer is fure to be dafhed to pieces, or drowned in the 
fubjacent fea. The rope is often fhifted from place to place, with the impend- 
ing weight of the fowler and his booty. The perfon above receives fignals for 
the purpofe, his affociate being far out of fight ; who, during the operation, by 
help of a ftaff, {prings from the face of the rocks, to avoid injury from the pro- 
jeGting parts. 
In Foula, they will truft to a fmall ftake driven into the ground, or toa {mall 
dagger, which the natives ufually carry about them; and which they will ftick 
into the ground, and, twifting round it a fifhing cord, defcend by that to 
climbing places, and, after finifhing their bufinefs, {warm up by it without fear. 
Few who make a practice of this come to a natural death. ‘They have a common 
faying, ‘ Such a one’s Gutcher went over the Sueak; and my father went over 
the Sneak too.’ It is a pity that the old Norwegian law was nothere in force. It 
confidered this kind of death as a fpecies of fuicide. The next of kin (in cafe 
the body could be feem) was directed to go the fame way ; if he refufed, the corpfe 
was not to be admitted into holy ground *. 
But the moft fingular fpecies of fowling is on the holm of No/s, a vaft rock fevered 
from the ifle of Nofs by fome unknown convulfion, and only about fixteen fathoms 
diftant. It is of the fame ftupendous height as the oppofite precipice +, with a raging. 
fea between; fo that the intervening chafm is of matchlefs horror. Some adventurous 
climber has reached the rock ina boat, gained the height, and faftened feveral ftakes 
on the fmall portion of earth which is to be found on the top: correfpondent ftakes 
are placed on the edge of the correfpondent cliffs. A rope is fixed to the ftakes on 
both fides, along which a machine, called a cradle, is contrived to flide; and, by 
the help of a fmall parallel cord faftened in like manner, the adventurer wafts 
himfelf over, and returns with his booty, which is the eggs or young of the 
Black-backed Gull, N° 451, and the Herring Gull, N® 452. 
The number of wild Quadrupeds which have reached the Or&uey and Schet- 
land iflands are only five; the Otter, Brown Rat, Common Moufe, Fetid 
Shrew, and Bat. Rabbets are not of Britifs origin, but naturalized in every 
part. In the fandy ifles of Orkney, they are found in myriads, and their fkins 
are a great article of commerce ; but the injury they do in fetting the unftable 
foil in motion, greatly counter-vales the profit. 
In many parts of thefe iflands are evident marks of their having been a wooded 
country. In the parifh of St. Andrew in the Orknies, in North Maven, and 
even in Fou/a in the Schetlands, often large tracts are difcovered filled with the 
remains of large trees, which are ufually found after fome violent tempeft hath 
* Debes, Hift. Ferroe Yes, 154. + 480 feet. 
3 blown 
