ST. KILDA AND. ITS BIRDS. 329 



singing had a decidedly weird effect. After the service 

 was over the women all got up and left the church before 

 any of the men stirred from their seats — an interesting 

 survival of a very ancient custom. The women were all 

 in their Sunday (and holiday) attire, wearing bright 

 coloured shawls and gaudy coloured handkerchiefs over 

 their heads, red being the predominating colour. The 

 Sabbath is very strictly observed by the natives, no work 

 of any kind being carried out on that day if it can possibly 

 be avoided. I do not wish to imply from the foregoing 

 that these people have no faults, but I am stating my own 

 experience of them. It is the etiquette of the place to 

 shake hands with the natives every morning at least, and 

 the hearty hand-shake of a St. Kildan is a thing to be 

 remembered'. 



Nothing- is known Avith certainty as to the original 

 inhabitants of St. Kilda, but there can be no doubt that 

 the present natives are the descendants of immigrants from 

 other of the Hebridean islands — Skye, Lewis, Uist, &c. — 

 as might, indeed, have been anticipated. It is an 

 undoubted fact that some of their ancestors were persons 

 who were banished from these islands for various offences, 

 or who found it convenient to anticipate justice by leaving 

 them ; but that all the natives are so descended (as some 

 writers have implied) seems to me very improbable. The 

 natives say that the island was at one time much more 

 fertile than now, and grew much more corn, and there is 

 some historical evidence in favour of this statement, for 

 in Martin's (3) time the island supported a much larger 

 population than it does at the present day. There would 

 consequently formerly have been greater inducements for 

 people to settle there than exist at present. 



There are now only six surnames in the island — 

 Ferguson, Gillies, MacQuien, Mac-Donald, MacKinnon 



