Hundreds of single females could flood the Island looking for a husband, after a UK tabloid with a daily readership of one million, voted Bermuda the world?s number one place for a woman to find a man.

?Mr. Wonderful? ? read the headline of the article published two weeks ago.

?Are you looking for love?? it asked. ?Take our tour of exotic locations where eligible bachelors far outnumber single women.?

Listed first among Silicon Valley (California), Nathan (Australia), Lisdoonvarna (Ireland), Beijing (China), Shetland (UK), Richmond (UK) and Nome (Alaska) ? the Island did appear exotic.

The article continued: ?Thanks to its status as one of the world?s premier tax havens, Bermuda has become a prime hunting ground for single women.

?Their target: the hundreds of male lawyers and accountants who have been shipped to the Island to keep their company?s accounts in order.?

And ?sown reporter Scott Neil was contacted by the UK national for a comment.

?Most of the business here is in the financial sector and a lot of people are very affluent,? Mr. Neil said in the article. ?Workers tend to get great packages when they come out here and all they need is someone to share it with.?

According to the June 2005 Government employment briefs, out of a total of 38,363 jobs on the Island, 19,937 were filled by men while 18,426 were occupied by women.

However, the male/female ratio had decreased in the last five years, statistics said, as the last Census of Population and Housing reported there were 19,007 male workers compared to 17,871 women in 2000.

But despite the drop, Bermuda still beat out Silicon Valley, California where 250,000 single men and bachelors outnumber single women by five-to-one, the article said.

Surfers paradise, Nathan, Australia near Brisbane was voted number three in the world?s top pulling places, it said, just beating out Lisdoonvarna, Ireland ? which has an annual matchmaking ceremony.

In Beijing, where the Chinese Government?s mandatory ?one-child? policy led to the abortion of millions of female foetuses from 1979, 40 million men will be forced into bachelorhood by 2020, it said.

It also said Bermuda beat out North Sea fishing-capital Shetland, Royal Air Force base Richmond, Yorkshire and the arctic outpost of Nome, Alaska.

And in a desperate call to stop a dramatic population decline in Scotland, Jack McConnell, leader of the Scottish Labour Party and first minister of the Scottish Parliament, last month led a call to get more Scottish men away from Canada, the US, Australia and South Africa and back to their home land.