Angling for Birds

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXVIII, Issue 3483, 23 August 1937, Page 2

Angling for Birds

St. Kilda, fifty miles west of the Outer Hebrides, is only three miles long and two miles broad, and, being very rocky, its inhabitants have to be pretty' wide awake to make a living. To a great extent they depend upon sea birds for their food supply, and one fowler has been known to catch 620 birds in a single day. The fowler sets out with a long deal pole, nine or ten feet long, with a horse-hair noose at the end camouflaged by ganuet’s quills. Puffins are numerous on the island, and the fowler creeps as near to the birds as possible without giving them the alarm, thrusts forth his rod along the ground, works the noose close to an unsuspecting puffin, and very dexterously drops the noose over the bird’s head and secures it.

The birds are treated much like herrings, except they need a preliminary plucking. When that is done they are split open, kippered, and hung in long strings across the cottage celling. In this way they will keep for an indefinite period, and provide a puffin breakfast at a moment’s notice.