228 Mr. George Tate on the Fame Islands. 



galloped for a while and then retired, leaving the brethern to 

 enjoy victory and repose/' In the days of the hermits, the 

 Weduras were used as a burying-place for shipwrecked sailors. 



Nearly a mile north-westward from the Fame are the Swed- 

 man, a bare rock covered by the tides, and the Megstone, which 

 is devoid of vegetation, but whitened with the dung of cormorants, 

 who rest here, but do not now breed upon it. 



Of the outer group, the Fosseland, now called the Brownsman, 

 and the Stapel are the largest and most interesting for natural 

 objects. They have an elevation of about 40 feet above the 

 sea, with a scanty vegetation, as the surface is for the most part 

 rocky, and where there is soil, it is shallow and peaty, though in 

 some parts resting on a clay overlying the basalt. On these 

 islands we observed 33 species of plants, the rarest being Cheno- 

 podium botryoides, Cochlearia Danica, and a beautiful double 

 variety of Silene maritima. Formerly sheep were kept on 

 Fosseland, but now no animal lives upon it. The effect of this 

 change of treatment is singular, for the grasses adapted to the 

 maintenance of sheep and cattle are withering away before the 

 unchecked inroads of the vigorous Sea Campion (Silene maritima), 

 which is spreading over the whole island. The sea fowl are 

 here very numerous, especially the Sea Pie, the Puffin or Tommy 

 Noddy (Mormon fratercula), and the Sea Swallow or Common 

 Tern ; the Sandwich Tern and the Roseate Tern (Sterna Dougalli) 

 are less abundant. There are on this island a deserted tower, 

 which was formerly a lighthouse, and a house now used, during 

 the summer, as a residence for the person who watches the 

 islands and gathers the eggs of the sea fowl. Complaints have 

 been made, and actions at law brought, by the conservators of 

 the islands, against those who for mere sport shoot these birds, 

 which injure nobody ; but it is surely questionable policy to rob 

 the poor birds of their eggs in a wholesale manner, year after 

 year, for the purpose of sale, especially when the tendency of this 

 proceeding is to destroy, and render scarce, creatures, which are 

 a delight to naturalists, and a source of enjoyment to all who 

 can relish the beautiful, the novel, and the curious. 



On this island I had an opportunity of observing the tame- 

 ness of the Eider Duck — the favourite bird of St. Cuthbert, 

 who, monkish historians say, taught it gentleness and confidence. 

 Close to the house it sat on its nest, undisturbed by the approach 

 of strangers, quietly looking on with its meek eye without fear. 

 The description of these birds in Bartholomew's Life is graphic : 

 — " Some hatch their eggs close by the altar, and nobody pre- 

 sumes to hurt them, or even to touch their eggs without per- 

 mission. With their mates they seek their sustenance in the 

 deep. Their young, as soon as hatched, follow their mothers ; 



