BONXIE.
[I,. THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.'1
Stn,—My attention having been directed to an article entitled " Bonxie " in the Spectator of April 11th, I desire very shortly to do away with a false impression which that article may have conveyed. your correspondent (at p. 510) says :—"Some gentlemen landing on the island of Foula from a yacht [the italics are mine] slew a great number of Skuas at their breeding haunts," &a.; and again : "There was no concealment of the name of the yacht, or that of those con- cerned."
Now, Sir, my yacht—the Shiantelle '—so far as I am aware, was the only yacht which visited Foula in 1890, and no single person on board my yacht landed on Foula with a gun, nor was a single bird of any species shot there by any of my party. It is therefore due to me, that any false impression which may have been conveyed by your corre- spondent's article be promptly done away with, and the erroneous statement "that gentlemen landing from a yacht on Foula slew," &c., be contradicted.—I am, Sir, &c., JOHN A. Efmtvxic-BnowN, Memb. of Brit. Ornithologists' Union, owner of yawl Shiantelle.'
"The Fife Arms," Bothiemay, April 21st.
[Mr. Harvie-Brown may rest assured that no one ever did or could suppose his to be the yacht, or his friends the gentle- men concerned in this affair. The Shiantelle ' and her philor- nithic owner are far too well known in Scottish seas to make his disclaimer necessary. The facts of the case are not affected by the Skua-killers having crossed to Emile, in a fishing-smack from the main island, where they quitted their yacht, to which they afterwards returned.—ED. Spectator.]
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