340 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



natural selection has been in progress, causing on an 

 average those men to survive whose steadiness of nerve 

 and sureness of foot had safely carried them through all 

 the perils of their calling', whilst their companions who 

 were less well endowed in these respects, were not unfre- 

 quently eliminated. The youth of IT, for instance, who 

 fell from the top of Oisaval forty years ago when catching 

 Puffins, left no descendants to inherit the defect of nerve 

 or unsteadiness of foot, which caused him to meet his 

 death ; and the same thing must frequently have happened 

 in the past history of the islanders. The race, indeed, 

 here as elsewhere, has been continually recruited from 

 those who were best fitted to their environment, and a 

 more perfect adaptation has therefore resulted in fewer 

 deaths occurring from failure of adjustment. 



The St. Kildans are as expert in the art of managing 

 their boats as they are in climbing the cliffs. I do not 

 mean to say that they are specially expert as sailors, but 

 the skilful manner in which they bring their boats up to 

 the rocks, and land and re-embark in the face of a heavy 

 swell, where few sailors even would care to risk their 

 boats, is remarkable. Long practice, however, has enabled 

 them to judge so accurately as to the extent to which 

 they can venture, and so cleverly do they manage the 

 business, that though the boat may appear to be in 

 imminent risk of being smashed on the rocks, such 

 accidents are nevertheless very rare. The difficulties, of 

 course, vary greatly with the state of the wind and sea, 

 but even in the finest weather the restless heave from 

 which the Atlantic is never free, causes a ceaseless swell 

 to beat upon the rocks, and a really calm landing is a very 

 rare event. Although, of course, landing is frequently 

 effected with no particular difficulty, it may be said 

 generally that the process of landing and re-embarking are 



