Lying, as it does, right in the track of trading vessels, this low islet, together with the Stack, which rises to a height of more than a hundred feet some four and a half miles to the south-westward, formed a death-trap to many a ship, which was, no doubt, afterwards merely reported as “missing,” and its shores when visited were rarely found without some stranded wreckage to tell of the unrecorded tragedies of the winter seas. It was not till the year 1892 that steps were taken to mark this dangerous rock, but three years later saw the completion of Sule Skerry Lighthouse, a massive tower of a hundred feet in height, with a powerful light visible for a distance of eighteen miles. Sule Skerry is no longer either a dangerous or a lonely islet when compared with its former state. The three lightkeepers who are always on duty, together with their goats, poultry, and rabbits, give quite an inhabited air to the place—probably too much so for the comfort of the original occupants, the flocks of birds which find on it either a permanent home or a temporary dwelling-place. Sule Skerry is an ideal place for observation of the birds which frequent our islands, both from the immense numbers of them which nest there, and from the absence of high cliffs or inaccessible rocks. Luckily for us, one of the lightkeepers formerly on this station, Mr. Tomison, a native of Orkney, was a man unusually well qualified for such observation, and he has recorded much that is of interest regarding the bird life of the Skerry. From one of his papers on this subject we quote the following interesting pages. [Illustration: _Sule Skerry Lighthouse._] The Residenters. The birds of Sule Skerry may be divided into three classes—the residenters, the regular visitors, and the occasional visitors. The class of residenters is represented by the great black-backed gull, the herring gull, the shag or green cormorant, and the meadow pipit. [Illustration: _Great black-backed gull._]