It is chiefly in pursuit of the fulmar that the St. Kildian often endangers his life. Two of the fowlers generally proceed in company, each furnished with several coils of rope, about half an inch in diameter. One of them fastens one of the ropes under his arm-pits, and holding the extremity of another rope in one hand, is lowered down the cliff. His comrade stands a little away from the edge, holding the supporting rope firmly with both hands and letting it out very slowly, while he allows the other, or guide-rope, to slip out as is required from under one foot, which loosely secures it. On reaching a ledge occupied by birds, the fowler commences his operations, easily securing the eggs and young birds, and knocking down the old ones with a short stick, or catching them by a noose attached to a long slender rod. He then secures his sport by bundling the birds together, and tying them to a rope let down from above, depositing at the same time in a small basket the eggs he has gathered. The dexterity of these rocksmen is truly astonishing. The smallest spot is considered by them as a sufficiently secure standing-place, and they will creep on hands and knees, though cumbered with a load of birds, along a narrow ledge, seemingly without concern for their personal safety. When exhibiting before strangers, a precipice about six hundred feet high, overhanging the sea, at a short distance from the village, is generally chosen for a display of their agility. About midway they strike against the rock, and rebound twelve feet or more with all the agility of a tight-rope dancer. The Gannet, or Solan-goose, which abounds in the north of Scotland and on the numberless islands and rocky fiords which line the Norwegian coast, likewise congregates in vast numbers about St. Kilda, from whence a portion of them take their departure every morning to fish for herrings, their favourite food, in the bays and channels of the other Hebrides, the nearest of which is about fifty miles distant. This bird is very select in the choice of its breeding-places, which it occupies to the total exclusion of every other species. None are to be found in Hirta, but the island of Borreray is almost entirely occupied with them, as are also the adjacent rocks, Stack Ly and Stack Narmin. These cliffs are remarkable for their pointed summits and towering height, and appear, even from the distance of many miles, as if they were covered with snow, the deceptive appearance being caused by the myriads of gannets with which the rock is thickly covered, as well as the dense clouds of these white-plumed birds passing and repassing in the neighbourhood of their nests. Petrels, shearwaters, puffins, guillemots, and auks, are also very abundant about the weather-beaten cliffs of St. Kilda. [Illustration: Puffin.]