BIRD-CATCHING IN SHETLAND. 
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of Albatrosses, hovering like a cloud, — some continually 
alighting and meeting their companions, while others are as 
continually rising and shaping their course towards the sea. 
Many of the birds of the two latter tribes, either from 
their feathers, skins, oil, or eggs, are considered, as it were, 
the standard harvest of the poor people, who, like them, are 
destined to abide amidst the wild and lonely islands of the 
ocean : it is, therefore, natural to suppose that no means are 
neglected, no ingenuity left untried, in providing, whether 
for rent, clothing, food, or the lamp-light of their long and 
dreary Winter’s nights, by laying in a store of each of these 
important articles, for which they are indebted to their com- 
panions, the sea-birds. And as the risks and difficulties 
which they encounter, and overcome, form leading features in 
their lives, we shall close our account with a few of the 
hazardous and interesting details connected with the reaping 
of this their fearful harvest. 
It is chiefly on the most rugged shores of Scotland, or on 
the more rugged rocks of the several adjacent islands, or still 
further to the north, in the Shetland or Ferroe Islands, that 
this “ dreadful trade” is carried on in the perfection of its 
horrors ; though in some parts of Wales, — as, for instance, 
near the South Stack above-mentioned, and the Needle Rocks 
off the Isle of Wight, — adventurous climbers will occasionally 
exhibit feats of perilous achievement, quite sufficient to 'satisfy 
most beholders. In some parts of the coast, immense 
mounds or fragments of rocks have been cut off from the 
main land by terrible convulsions of nature, or the incessant 
wearing of waves through fissures and narrow channels for 
successive ages. On a few of these spots, sea-birds, for a 
time, rested securely, till some bold adventurers devised the 
means of invading their territories, crossing the space by 
means of cradles, suspended on ropes thrown across. 
At Carrick-a-Reade, near the Giant’s Causeway, in Ire- 
land, and in the Shetland Islands, two of these airy convey- 
ances are still in use; and, until a suspension-bridge was 
erected a few years ago, a third, and tolerably commodious 
and safe one, existed, connecting the South Stack rock with 
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