MU. t:. UlUWELL ON’ THE I8LES OK SOILLV. 
211 
out to sea till the other night cometh. And though the Young he 
fed but once a day, yet it is so fat, that no Goose, though it hath 
been three weeks fed, can be fatter. These young ones they call 
Lyers, and by reason of their fatness they do not make present use 
of them, but salt them to eat them in Winter, melting their fat, 
which they burn in Lamps. They have to take them out seveml 
hooks half an Ell, or an Ell long, wherewith they pierce them 
through and draw them out. They do not usually take the Dam 
hensolf, except she be sometimes hurt with the hook that she 
cannot live. If they cannot get the young one with their hook, 
or by thrusting their arm into the bird’s Mest, by reason of the 
many turnings, they dig a hole down to it, as near as they can 
guess, and then thrust about with their hooks till they can get it ; 
Avhich hole they must again stoj) so close, that not one drop of water 
can come into it, for else .she will fonsake her hole and never come 
thither more; whicli otherwise she doth every year in the wonted 
])laco ; so that the Inhabitants know where under the earth to find 
that Bird’s Xest yearly.” 
The only other known nesting-place of the !Manx Shearwater on 
the English coast is Lundy Island ; but the colony there is a very 
small one. There are three places on the Welsh coast that have 
been recorded by that most careful of observers, the late Thomas Dix ; 
namely, Caldy Island, Skomcr, and Skokhum. 
Off the south-west coast of Ireland, the Skelligs affoi’d a home 
to largo numbers of this bird. Sir Ilalph Payne Gallwey says in 
‘ The Fowler in Ireland,’ that “on foggy nights they may easily bo 
caught by means of a lantern. They cannot in thick weather find 
their holes as they come in from the sea, and squat about on the 
open ground.” 
Other small stations are known on the Irish coast ; but it is as 
we proceed up the west coast of Scotland that their haunts become 
more frequent, St. Kilda being the largest colony in this country. 
On leaving the yacht we first landed on a small rocky island 
called Merrick, where we found, in addition to several nests of the 
Oystercatcher, two nests of the Common Tern containing eggs, 
these being the only Terns’ eggs found during our visit. 
When rowing past Gweal — on which, as we saw nothing 
but Lessor Black-backed and Herring Gulls, we did not 
land — our pilot told us that formerly Crows used to nest on the 
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