The cliffs are the property of the Danish Crown and are rented annually in sections at a price ranging from sixty to seventy-five dollars. The laws governing bird catching are well defined and strict. The season and method of capture of each species is explicitly stated. A gun can never be used under any circumstances. No act can be committed which would in the least disturb the birds. The eider duck can never be killed except by a man who can prove that he was actually starving with no other means of procuring food. But above all the laws and rendering laws unnecessary is a sound public opinion.
All the birds are very tame. Tens of thousands of puffins sit upright along the tops of the crags, many of them still holding rows of little fishes in their great beaks. The catchers station themselves at definite intervals along the cliffs and catch them in a net as they fly past. Their necks are broken with a sudden twist as the net is unloaded and the birds left in piles along the ground or thrown to the bottom of the cliff to be gathered by the boys and women who pluck them. The breast is used for food. The remainder of the birds are strung on long lines and hung upon the fences or festooned from the gables of the houses to dry and to furnish fuel. A single puffin is worth when first captured about a cent and a half. The down is sold at the trader’s store for thirteen cents per pound. About 40,000 puffins are taken on these cliffs each season.
The fulmar is nearly as important as the puffin. About 30,000 are captured during the open season. The fulmar, “foul-gull,” is appropriately named. When captured or disturbed it spits a large quantity of oily fluid, rank with the odor of putrid fish. These birds are taken by the simple act of knocking them over with a club. Several men usually work in unison. One man has a long rope fastened to his waist and then twisted around each thigh. Suspended in the air, or with his feet against the face of the cliff he ascends or descends the sides of the rock, kicking himself outward. The rope is managed by three or four men at the top of the cliff and sometimes secured by an iron ring fastened in the rock.
The fulmars are plucked, the heads and wings cut off, the body split open, the interior fat cleaned out, and then the birds are either smoked or packed in salt for winter use. The fat is boiled down to a thick oil, spiced and used as a substitute for butter. Ten fulmars will yield a liter of oil. The oil is used in the native lamps. The entrails, heads, wings and legs are dried and used for fuel. It is so difficult to free the feathers from the oil that they are of little value. When thoroughly cleaned they are worth only twelve cents per pound. The birds themselves when cured are worth four cents each.
Nearly a thousand gannets, Solon Goose, are taken in these islands each year. Why it is called the “Solon” is not known. It is possible that it really possesses wisdom in excess of other geese. Scientifically it is not a real goose. A great many kittiwakes and guillemots are captured though the total value is much less than the above mentioned birds.
The young men of Heimaey capture the stormy petrels alive for the purpose of playing jokes with them. The birds give a sound similar to the purring of a cat. Several of them are let loose in the night in the house of the person on whom the joke is to be played. The birds dart about the house in a lively manner and give their cry of alarm which is weird and uncanny. It produces the desired effect upon the sleeper as he awakens.
We steamed away from Heimaey, passed between Fuglasker and Reykjaness where steam was rising from numerous hot springs and at seven in the morning, having crossed Faxafjörðr, dropped anchor in the stream before the still slumbering city of Reykjavik.