Copinshay

   COPINSHAY, an island, in the parish of Deerness, county of Orkney; containing 13 inhabitants. It is about three-quarters of a mile in length, and half a mile in breadth, lying about three miles directly eastward of the mainland, and contains some good ground, both arable and pasture. The height of the perpendicular rock on the east side of it is 300 feet, and there is a large rock called the Horse of Copinshay on the north-east, about 200 feet high, and distant half a mile. Both of these rocks are covered with immense numbers of sea-fowl in the spring and summer months; and at the period when they deposit their eggs and hatch their young, if a gun be fired from a boat below, the birds, alarmed by the report, fly from their nests in such myriads as to darken the air for some extent around. They are principally maws, nories, scarfs, auks, and kittyauks.