compelled to summon us on board after a short visit to the 

 inhabitants. 



There everything betokened the carnage of our friends; mud 

 houses, the public store rooms of the village, were filled with 

 dried birds. Large packages of feathers were in every house, 

 the coin with which they pay their rents, and loose feathers, 

 birds' wings, and bones, were everywhere strewed around 

 thick and deep ; the lamps which they were burning were too 

 supplied with oil from the Fulmar Petrel. I regretted much the 

 necessity of leaving a place abounding with interest, and which 

 it had been for years my ambition to visit. The Solan Goose 

 takes its food, the small herring sprats, in the same manner as 

 the various species of Tern, by precipitating itself headlong 

 into the water. I have many a time beheld witli amazement a 

 number of the Gannets thus pounce down so closely after 

 each other, and so nearly into the same place, that it seemed 

 almost impossible that they should avoid doing each other an 

 injury, many remaining emersed at the same time. At their 

 great breeding places before-mentioned, they build their nests 

 upon every shelf or projecting ledge of rock which offers itself 

 on the steep sides of the precipices. It is formed of a consi- 

 derable quantity of sea weed and dry grass, upon which is 

 deposited the single egg, which when first laid is of a pure 

 white, the harder shell being covered over outside with a 

 coating of a chalky substance. 



