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THE BRITISH NATURALIST. [F EBRUARY 



at Liverpool. Soon the wind falls light, and we begin to fear we 

 shall not get out of Hoy Sound before the tide begins to turn, but with 

 fresh puffs of wind, in an hour-and-a-half we are abreast of Hoy Head, 

 a dark and lofty isle so eloquently described by Sir Walter Scott. I hear 

 several gulls making a plaintive cry, the cause is not far to seek ; a 

 kittawake gull is being attacked by the common skua ; this bird, when 

 at rest, has a very hawk-like appearance, though allied to the gulls, and 

 is as bold and insolent as most of the gulls are timid and retiring. It 

 seizes the first opportunity of assailing a successful fisher, when it pounces 

 on it and beats it with its wing until it rises from the water, — when the 

 gull rises he soars up into the air to get away from the skua, — and when 

 at a convenient height, Mr. Skua gets below him, and attacks him more 

 vigorously than ever, until he compels the gull to disgorge his prey, and 

 long before it reaches the water, it is caught and eaten ; he then flies 

 away to seek another victim ; but often, the gulls combine together and 

 attack the skua, and beat the marauder effectually off. 



We now sight the " Old Man of Hoy," which is 45o feet high. 

 It is evident that at one time it formed part of the cliff, as the various 

 layers in the lofty column correspond with those on shore. Its isolation 

 displays the power of the denuding agencies to which it has been subjected : 

 at the beginning of this century it stood, so to speak, on two legs, an arch 

 piercing through the lower portion of it, and there is no doubt, in the course 

 of time, the remainder will succumb a victim to the ordinary atmospheric 

 agents of waste, and to the pounding blows of the sea. We now begin 

 to feel the tide against us, but fortunately, the wind freshens and we are able 

 to stem it, and once well out of Hoy Sound the swell of the Atlantic 

 begins to assert itself more fully, and I begin to feel the effects of 

 Britannia not ruling the waves straight. We arrive oft the Skerry at 

 midnight, but we are only just able to make out the island, the night 

 being dark, so we heave to, and wait until dawn. The con- 

 tractor gets out the " murderer," and starts to fish for cod, coal-fish, or 

 ling, which are abundant off here ; in fact, I may say they almost jostle 

 one another in their eagerness to be caught. But he has no such luck. 

 Before the line has got down a few fathoms, a sharp tug announces the 

 capture of a dog-fish, and in a very short time he caught sixteen of them. 

 Just a word or two about this fish, which is called the " picked dog-fish," 

 generally known in Orkney as the " Hoe. ,? It is at once distinguished 

 from all other species of the shark tribe by the spike placed in advance 

 of each of the two dorsal fins, with which it can inflict a severe wound, 

 very bad to heal. It measures from three to four feet in length, and is of 

 a blue slate colour on the upper parts, and on the under of a yellowish 

 white. It is ovo-viviparous, and produces many young at a time. It 

 was owing to this fish that last year the Orkney herring fishing was a 

 partial failure and in the Shetlands a total failure. I will just read you 



