THE BIRDS OF PAPA STOUR. 127 



is one of the minor islands of the Shetland group. It forms the 

 southern point of that large and many-voed inlet of the Atlantic, 

 St. Magnus Bay, and is the most westerly, with the exception of 

 Foula. The Sound of Papa, which separates it from the main- 

 land, is only about a mile and a half in width; but through this 

 rushes, at certain states of the wind and tide, one of the worst 

 of the many "roosts," or tide-races, round these coasts. 



Despite its magnificent caves, fantastically-shaped stacks, 

 and fine cliffs covered with sea-fowl, Papa Stour has received 

 perhaps less attention from travellers and naturalists than any 

 other of the islands. This has no doubt been owing to the 

 difficulty of access, the nearest village on the mainland — Sandness 

 — being until recently separated from Walls on the south by eight 

 miles of roadless hill and bog, and from the central highway to 

 to the east by a perfect labyrinth of lochs of all sizes and levels. 

 Now, however, a road connecting Sandness and Walls has just 

 been finished, so that it is possible to drive right from Lerwick to 

 Sandness if a little jolting be not objected to. 



One of the principal reasons for my visit to " Paapa," as it is 

 called by the natives, was to ascertain if the accounts of the old 

 writers on the Ornithology of Shetland, with regard to the great 

 Golony of Puffinus anglorum on the Lyra Skerry, held good at the 

 present day, since in Shetland at all events — whatever may be 

 happening elsewhere — my experience points to a great recent 

 decline in the numbers of this species. 



The earliest ornithological writer who mentions Papa Stour 

 is Brand (1701) : he, however, never visited it, and is generally 

 quite unreliable. He says of it: — " The Isle of Papa Stour is 

 said to be the pleasantest little isle in all this country. Two 

 miles long, and well furnished with fewel, grass, corn, rabbets, 



&c Nigh to this Isle lyes the Lyra Skerries, so called 



because the lyres (those fat fowles spoken of in our description 

 of Orkney) do frequent this Skerry." 



That accurate and most painstaking naturalist and microscopist, 

 the Rev. Geo. Low, visited Papa Stour (1770) on his Shetland 

 tour, and says of the Lyra Skerry, it is " inhabited by vast 

 numbers of Shearwaters — lyries." I can discover no more recent 

 reference to the Ornithology of the island than this. 



The surface of Papa Stour, so far from being "well furnished 

 with fewel, grass, &c," is, to a large extent, almost totally devoid 



