ITINERARIES. 



155 



comes close up to them, because they are not wont to 

 be scared or disturbed. The young ones are esteemed a 

 choice dish in Scotland, and sold very dear (1^. ^d. 

 plucked.) We eat of them at Dunbar. They are in 

 bigness little inferior to an ordinary goose. The young 

 one is upon the back black, and speckled with little 

 white spots, under the breast and the belly gray. The 

 beak is sharp-pointed, the mouth very wide and large, 

 the tongue very small, the eyes great, the foot hath four 

 toes webbed together. It feeds upon mackrel and 

 herring, and the flesh of the young one smells and tastes 

 strong of these fish. The other birds which nestle in 

 the Basse are these ; the scout, [razor-bill, Alca torda,~\ 

 which is double ribbed ; the cattiwake, [is a gull kitti- 

 wake. Lams trydactylus^ in English, cormorant, \Flia' 

 lacTocorax carhop the scart, [scarf, the shag, Phalacro- 

 coraoc graculus ;] and a bird called the turtle-dove, [black 

 guillemot, Greenland dove so called, TJria grylle~\ whole 

 footed, and the feet red. There are verses which contain 

 the names of these birds among the vulgar, two whereof 

 are, 



" The scout, the scart, the cattiwake. 

 The soland goose sits on the lack, 

 Yearly in the spring." 



We saw of the scout's eggs, which are very large and 

 speckled. It is very dangerous to climb the rocks for 

 the young of these fowls, and seldom a year passeth but 

 one or other of the climbers fall down and lose their 

 lives, as did one not long before our being there. The 

 laird of this island makes a great profit yearly of the 

 soland geese taken; as I remember, they told us 130/. 

 sterling. There is in the isle a small house, which they 

 call a castle ; it is inaccessible and impregnable, but of 

 no great consideration in a war, there being no harbour, 

 nor anything like it. The island will afibrd grass enough 

 to keep thirty sheep. They make strangers that come to 

 visit it burgesses of the Basse, by giving them to drink 

 of the water of the well, Avhich springs near the top of 



