Stac an Armin

The first written account of the island was Martin Martin's description in the early 18th century. Martin wrote about the island after the Scottish writer had visited St Kilda in 1697 and included a few anecdotes about the stack in his A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland published in 1703. It was the first comprehensive book on the archipelago, to which was appended "A Late Voyage to St Kilda". Martin calls the island "Stack-Narmin." It was never inhabited full-time, but hunting its bird population helped sustain the way of life of the population of St Kilda, as evidenced by the buildings they left behind. There are no fewer than 78 storage cleitean on Stac an Armin and a small…

, London]] On Stac an Armin, in July, 1840, the last great auk (Pinguinus impennis) seen in Britain was caught and killed. A then 75-year-old inhabitant of St Kilda told Henry Evans, a frequent visitor to the archipelago, that he and his father-in-law with another man had caught a "garefowl," noticing its little wings and the large white spot on its head. They tied it up and kept it alive for three days, and then killed it by beating it with a stick, apparently because they believed it to be a witch. The last known specimens in the world were killed a few years later either in Eldey, Iceland, or off Newfoundland.