This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX. SEA-BIRDS AND CRAGSMEN. TF the human population of St Kilda is somewhat sparse, --during eight or nine months of the year every island and stack in the group is tenanted by myriads of feathered inhabitants, which impart no small amount of life and bustle to what would otherwise be a desolate and lonely scene. It is, of course, impossible to indicate an approximation to the number of the various kinds of sea-fowl which annually occupy the beetling cliffs; and even with the king of birds as registrar-general, and a select staff of sharp-eyed falcons as enumerators, an ornithological census of these islands would probably prove a very arduous task! Macculloch refers to Swift's description of a land of feathers in his ' Tale of a Tub, ' but as I have failed to find the passage, I must content myself with his own account of one of the special characteristics of St Kilda. "The air," he says, "is full of feathered animals, the sea is covered with them, the houses are ornamented by them, 160 UBIQUITY OF FEATHERS. the ground is speckled with them like a flowery meadow in May. The town is paved with feathers, the very dunghills are made of feathers, the ploughed land seems as if it had been sown with feathers, and the inhabitants look as if they had been all tarred and feathered, for their hair is full of feathers, and their clothes are covered with feathers. The women look like feathered Mercuries, for their shoes are made of a gannet's skin; everything smells of feathers, and the smell pursued us all over the islands--for the captain had concealed a sack-full in the cabin." The same writer, in his notice of the Flannan islands, makes some interesting observations on the harmony of the sea-birds, for the introduction of part of which I think it unnecessa...