536 
tourists, and cockneys from Edinburgh, could not allow that state 
of things to go on, so they pelted the birds and changed their eggs, 
and at last drove them all away to the precipices on the east and 
north sides, where at the present day it is computed that they 
muster something like 10,000 strong. 
Over these precipices, when the time comes for the young to be 
killed, an active man is lowered by means of a rope. He had 
need be one of undaunted nerve, for he holds his life in his 
hands ; but these fellows get so accustomed to it that they could 
swing on the end of a pack-thread if it would bear them, with 300 
feet of space below them, with the greatest composure ; though 
my guide did confess to me, that there were times when the 
stench from the birds, and the heat of the sun’s rays, refracted 
by the solid trap, had nearly been too much for him. The 
bold cragsman knocks as many of the young gannets on the head 
as he can, and pitches them into the sea below, where a boat 
is waiting to pick up the unsavoury spoil. A hundred or more 
are often taken in a day, but the number depends entirely on the 
weather. If it be wet, the cliff is very likely slippery, and if 
rough, a boat cannot approach the rock. The cragsman and the 
lessee scrutinize the clouds with as much anxiety for their feathered 
harvest as the farmer does for his crops, and according to the 
weather so is their take. 
The Sea-Birds Act has not given more satisfaction at the Bass 
than at other places. The present lessee hoped to reap a rich 
harvest, but he finds that it has done him more harm than good. 
Formerly, shooters were content with a few birds if they could 
come and kill them when they liked ; but now, directly August is 
up, there is a general desultory popping of an army of skirmishers. 
The shooters know that their time is limited, and they make the 
most of it before the birds are off. Their motto is, “ Wake hay 
while the sun shines,” and the birds know no peace. It is 
not the young ones they kill, which signify so much as the 
old ones. A good many of the young must always escape, but 
it is the old birds that have not yet laid aside their tameness, 
which get wounded by long shots and go away to die, which 
matter most, — breeding birds, which have taken many years in 
arriving at maturity. The young may be all the better for being 
killed down in moderation; as in a rookery, which, if left to itself, 
