I894-] 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



29 



an extract from a Shetland paper, in which it says : — " For the last seven 

 years the dog-fish have infested the coast of Shetland, and this year they 

 have reached what may be hoped is the culminating point. They are by 

 far more numerous than the stars, or the sand on the sea shore. From 

 the rocks along the coast to the furthest ocean on every side and around 

 the whole Shetland Isles, they are swarming in inconceivable numbers, 

 and devouring everything. Little boys pelt them from the shore with 

 stones, and if a bit of stick is thrown into the sea, they gather round it in 

 a grey moving mass, bite at it, and try to swallow it. The bait on the 

 fisherman's hook is swept off the moment it touches the water, and they 

 utterly destroy the fishing nets, the loss in fishing gear having been very 

 serious." The contractor soon gives up fishing, and we all turn in, with 

 the exception of the night-watch ; but we are pitching and rolling very 

 heavily, so it takes me all my time to hold on to my berth. At four 

 o'clock in the morning we make fast to the south moorings, which are 

 about 400 yards from the Skerry, in 18 fathoms of water, and almost 

 opposite to the south landing gully. We are not long in getting the 

 small boat out, and with great difficulty, owing to the heavy swell, we 

 make for the south gully. As it is low water, the rope ladder, 35 feet 

 in length, does not reach the water ; so when the boat heaves up with 

 the swell, we have to make a spring at the ladder, which you may be 

 sure is attended with a certain amount of danger, as a slip would mean 

 a ducking in 20 feet of water. Well, we all mount an almost per- 

 pendicular rock without any mishap, and after scrambling a few feet 

 further, I get a firm footing on the top, being the first tourist ever known 

 to have landed there, and am met with the gaze of thousands of 

 puffins, the scream of the tern, and numerous gulls. The Skerry is about 

 three-quarters of a mile long and nearly 500 yards wide in its widest 

 points, and 65 feet high at its highest point. A small portion at the 

 north-east corner is cut off by a gully nine feet wide, which I believe runs 

 dry at very low tides. The cliffs are mostly precipitous, formed of jagged 

 rocks, with numerous gullies. The western side is the most rugged, and 

 numerous reefs, lying below low-water mark, jut out a long way ; but 

 the east side is entirely free. The Skerry is granite of a fine quality, 

 with a soil of a peaty character, which nowhere exceeds 18 inches 

 in depth ; it is covered with a long dark green grass on the west side, 

 whilst on the east ox-eyed daisies bloom luxuriantly ; the other plants I 

 found were fennel, chickweed, sandwort, sea kale, and an atriplex, but none 

 of the sea pinks, which occur so abundantly on the rocky coasts of Orkney. 

 I also got several beetles, which Mr. Dutton has kindly mounted (one of 

 which is a water-beetle), and there were numerous " daddy-longlegs." 



At both the north and south gullies there are cranes,which are worked 

 by a long wire hawser attached to the donkey-engine, and there are two 

 fair-sized boats which are used to carry the material from the smack, and 



