i hope this message gets through. there was a typo in the book when it came out the line should have read starving staves out on scatterie, a stave being one piece of wood of which many would be hooped together to make a pickling barrel for fish, eel, meat, rum etc, i suppose they could be laid flat for making a flake or fish /eel drying platform.the fellow in the song and i suspect this particular verse was made my lauchlin macneil of french road was just saying that he and his brother caught so many they figured they didn't leave any for the people on scatterie island who would catch and process the eels, drying or salting but probably in this case drying for selling or to be consumed later simply preserving for when it became more difficult to get out on the ocean. eel is very delicious and tastes a lot like trout in my opinion. somebody asked about erwick harbour. i think the words they cant make out are "their BIG HARBOUR" NOT REFERING TO ANY BIG HARBOUR but more specifically to Big Harbour which is over by boulenderie. the melody was taken from the gaelic song mo ruin geal dileas but i transcribed it as amby sang it which was a variant on the typical melody line. sorry folks i missed that typo and then the book was published and i guess it was just compounded transmission trouble after that.its all my fault!