Mr. Atkinson's Notice of St. Kilda. 221 



the Gannet, Fulmar, Guillemot, and Razor Bill, the numbers of which 

 destroyed by it, are almost incredible. 



The Gannets are entirely confined to Borera, and nestle on the shelves 

 of its tremendous precipices, at all elevations, and in immense numbers ; 

 the fowling rod is employed for their capture, and the more hazardous 

 expedient of visiting the rocks at night, and securing the bird who acts 

 as sentinel : if this be accomplished, an abundant capture ensues, as 

 the others, relying upon him, are easily taken from their nests as they 

 sleep. 



The Fulmar is infinitely the most esteemed fowl the Kildeans have, 

 affording, in itself, one great component part of their food ; in the sin- 

 gle, large, brittle, white egg it lays, a delicate and nutritive animal sub- 

 stance, superior to the egg of any other sea bird ; and in its young, 

 another branch of their food in very high esteem. When captured 

 this bird ejects from its nostrils a considerable quantity of amber- 

 coloured oil, much valued by the inhabitants for the cure of rheuma- 

 tism applied externally, and for almost all the "ills that flesh is heir to," 

 taken internally. The young birds afford this in greatest abundance, 

 and what they eject is received on capture into a wooden bowl, and 

 carefully preserved. The food of the Fulmar seems still unascertained ; 

 the stomach of one or two which I opened, contained a small quantity 

 of sorrel and oily animal substance, too much decomposed to ascertain 

 its nature. From the heavy, inactive flight of the bird, I should imagine 

 its prey cannot, generally speaking, be of a very active description ; 

 and I am almost inclined to think, from the pulpy nature of the con- 

 tents of the stomach of those I opened, that molluscous animals floating 

 near the surface of the sea, may not improbably be the food of this 

 Genus, and that the sorrel, almost always found in their throats and 

 stomachs, may be used by them to assist in the digestion, by correcting 

 some particular quality of this kind of food, which seems to render 

 animals of this description unacceptable to other sea fowl. May we not 

 fairly suppose, that the oily secretion possessed by them is owing, in some 

 measure, to a particular kind of food ; and without saying any thing of 

 the rather absurd opinion of its feeding on whale's blubber, is it not 



