Most of the regular resorts of the Grey Seal in the Shetlands are inaccessible,
and others can be visited only in the very calmest weather. All along the west
side the sea cuts long narrow creeks and caves in the rocks, and at the upper end
of these are sand and gravel beaches unseen by human eye. The Grey Seal dive
in and enter by some submarine opening which is never exposed, even at the
lowest spring tides. In 1901 I made a circuit of the Shetlands for the purpose
of ascertaining the correct distribution of the animal. Fortunately I had fine
weather, and was able to reach some of the most outlandish corners. I shot a
fine adult male Grey Seal at the Ramna Stacks, and an adult female near the
Holm o’ Gloup.
A few Grey Seals are still found on the west coast of the Shetland Islands
from Fitful Head to Muckle Flugga. In most cases these are isolated pairs of
adult males breeding in the caves, whilst the immatures, which are strenuously
expelled from the breeding grounds by the adults, lead a roving life and occasionally
consort with the big herds of vitulina which frequent Quendale, Fitful
Head, Rona’s Hill, the West Noups (Yell), and the islands in the Sound of Yell.
The only places where the Grey Seal may be said to exist in small colonies are
the isolated and exposed Gruney,1 one of the Ramna Stacks at the northern
extremity of the mainland, and the Ve skerries, four miles out in the Atlantic,
west of Papa Stour. A favourite haunt, owing to its wild and well-nigh
inaccessible position and its deep-mouthed caverns, is the west side of the island
of Muckle Rooe,2 where a few of these great Seals may generally be seen playing
in the breaking surf. It is rare for the adult Grey Seal to frequent any of the
more sheltered holms during the breeding season, and yet I have heard of instances
when single female ‘ Haaf-fish ’ have retired to such places as the Sound of Yell,
and dropped their white pups in the same spot year after year. On two such
places, Brother Isle and Sliga Skerry, the young have frequently been taken and
the old ones clubbed. In 1904 I saw two adults and eight immatures on Muckla
Skerry, seven miles west of the Island of Whalsay.
The great rock chamber of Uyea is another home of the Grey Seal, and
sometimes quite a number breed there, as it is inaccessible after the month of
August. The island of Uyea at the north-west corner of the mainland possesses
a remarkable cavern, into which the sea flows and which it is possible to reach
with a boat only on rare occasions. It was my good fortune in August 1901 to
1 Lit The Green Island. 3 Lit The Big Red Island.
inspect this wonderful place. On such a day as occurs but once in the year
I got round from Sand Voe in a small boat and reached the narrow entrance
with great open walls of rock towering three hundred feet above. Jim Harrison,
my boatman, told me to land and if possible creep round an almost sheer wall
of rock, on which I could barely keep my feet from slipping, and then work on
into the interior. Presently I found myself entering a great and silent chamber
exactly like the space beneath the dome of St. Paul's, yet open to the sky at the
top. There was something so grand and impressive about this natural church
formed by no mean hands of earth, that I felt it would be almost sacrilege to
fire my rifle there; but there was no occasion, for no grypus was at home. Only
one black old vitulina lay on the high altar at the end. He gazed at me
a moment with his big liquid eyes in silent protest at this invasion of his
sanctuary and then slipped quietly into the water; swimming past within a few
yards he vanished at the entrance of the great cave. Mr. Burgess of North Haa,
who used sometimes to take a shot at a Seal, told me that he had more than once
seen the ‘ monsters ’ lying up in the great cave of Uyea and had on one occasion
put three bullets into one before it moved for the sea. One man, Dan Williamson
by name, a noted climber, had more than once descended the precipice which
formed three sides of this wonderful cavern, and although he asserted that it was
extremely difficult, nevertheless volunteered to send up by rope the skin of any
Seal I might shoot from the top of the cliff. But I had no desire to put his
bravery to such a test, especially as he assured me that he could never learn to
swim ten yards, he was ‘ that feared 0’ the watter.’
The. great cave of Uyea and the precipice at the back of Rona’s Hill will
never be seen, save by very few, until the ocean itself is harnessed and the winds
of the west have ceased to blow. And thank Heaven for that I These magnificent
walls, the great sanctuary of the Common Seal, can never be invaded and
made a ‘ place of interest ’ to the tourist, or the shambles of the Cockney
sportsman.
About fifty years ago the isolated island lying off the extreme north point of
Yell, known as Gloup Holm, was a favourite resort of the Grey Seal. Numbers
came here every year, the females giving birth to their young in the caves of the
western and southern cliffs; later, when the young were older, they would ascend
the high rocks, and the few inhabitants beside the Voe 0’ Gloup could see the
baby Seals white as lambs upon the spray-splashed rocks. In course of time,
however, the excellent ling and haddock grounds about a mile to the north of the