BIRDS USED AS LAMPS.

It will be many months before there is a plentiful supply of oil for lamps, but there is at least one place in Great Britain where people don't worry about the supply of oil, and that is St. Kilda. There a bird called the fulmar is used as a lamp, for its body is so rich in oil that the St. Kildans merely pass a wick through its dead body and it 13 ready for use.

The oil is also one of the things exported from the island. It is found in the bird's stomach, is amber coloured, and has a peculiarly nauseating smell. In the island it is illegal to kill the birds except during one week in the year, but in that week 18 to 20 thousand birds are destroyed.

Rgg gathering is another great industry of the St. Kildans, and the ropes they use to help them in climbing the cliffs are made of human hair. These ropes have a strong hempen cord centre, wrapped round and round with sheep's wool. Over this is a lining of horse hair, and finally strands of human hair. To manufacture such a rope is the work of years, and the St. Kildan women save their hair combings for this purpose religiously.

A. curio collector who visited the island offered a very big price for a fine specimen of one of these, hair ropes, but his offer was refused. The rope in question was the result of thirty years' collection from the scads of one family.