BRITISH BIRDS. 
39 * 
every feafon, and fold in Edinburgh for about 
twenty-pence each, where they are efteemed a fa- 
vourite difli, being generally roafted, and eaten 
before dinner. On the other bleak and bare ifles, 
the inhabitants, during a great part of the year, 
depend for their fupport upon thefe birds and their 
eggs, which are taken in amazing quantities, and 
are the principal articles of their food. * From the 
nefts placed upon the ground the eggs are eafily 
picked up one after another, in great numbers, as 
fall as they are laid ; but in robbing the nefts built 
in the precipices, chiefly for the fake of the birds, 
the bufmefs wears a very different afpeft: there, 
before the dearly earned booty can be fecured, the 
adventurous fowler, trained to it from his youth, and 
familiarized to the danger, muft firft approach the 
brow of the fearful precipice, to view and to trace 
his progrefs on the broken pendent rocks beneath 
him : over thefe rocks, which (perhaps a hundred 
fathoms lower) are dafhed by the foaming furge, 
he is from a prodigious height about to be fuf- 
pended. After addrefling himfelf in prayer to the 
* “ They preferve the eggs m ftone huts or pyramids, which 
they build for that purpofe, as well as for a flielter to the fowlers: 
in thefe pyramids they cover up the eggs with turf afhes, which 
defend them from the air, drynefs being their only prefervativc, 
and moifuure their corruption : by this method, it is faid, they 
keep them frelh and fit for ufe, for fix, feven,' or even for eight 
months.”— 
