Memorials of John Ray / edited by Edwin Lankester.

Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorials of John Ray / edited by Edwin Lankester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    comes close up to them, because they are not wont to be scared or disturbed. ‘The young ones are esteemed a choice dish m Scotland, and sold very dear (ls. 8d. 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, /ca torda, | which is double ribbed ; the cattiwake, [is a gull kitti- wake, Larus trydactylus,| in English, cormorant, [ Pha- lacrocorax carbo,| the scart, | scarf, the shag, Phalacro- corax graculus ;| and a bird called the turtle-dove, [ black guillemot, Greenland dove so called, Uria 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 afford 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, which springs near the top of