A fresh breeze was blowing over the swells of the North Atlantic today, but the anchorage in Village Bay at St. Kilda was protected enough that we were able to go ashore there on the main island of Hirta. The archaeologists investigating the 4000-year history of human occupation of this westernmost of the British Isles gave us a tour of the now abandoned village and described many details of the lives of the hardy people who made this wild, isolated place their home. Around the small settlement ran a series of stone walls and higher on the steep slopes perched numerous beehive-shaped cleets, storage buildings also made of the ubiquitous granite stones. Some of us hiked up to a high saddle above the village where we could look straight down hundreds of feet into the crashing breakers and out across the sea to the neighboring island of Bouroray and the dramatic rock pinnacle of Stac Lee which is home to the largest colony of Northern Gannets in northern Europe. As we watched, hundreds of Northern Fulmars wheeled past, riding the Atlantic winds which are their home element. Back around the village, we took time to observe the Soay sheep which now live wild on the island. This race of domestic sheep is thought to be the closest of all types to the original wild stock from which all domestic strains were derived. They have also been shown to have an unusual breeding system involving two distinct forms of males. Some of the rams have curling horns and compete with other horned males in violent butting contests for rights to groups of females, but other rams are naturally hornless and avoid fighting, accomplishing their mating by slipping into the groups of females unobserved. In a victory for pacifists everywhere these hornless males actually sire more lambs than the competitive horned rams.