198 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



Althougli tame in aspect, and covered with good grass and 

 some heather, the visitor notes the evidence of its storm-swept 

 situation in the divisions of the fields all being made with ships' 

 timbers, with the bolts in them in many cases. The little burial- 

 place contains, besides the ruins of a chapel dedicated to St. 

 Ninian (although the dedication is also claimed for St. Columba 

 and St. Adamnan), at least two remarkable stones of great 

 antiquity. The first of these to catch the eye is a " pillar of rude, 

 lumpish type, without a vestige of ornament, and roughly shaped 

 into the figure of a cross," and to it " we might perhaps venture 

 to attribute a possible antiquity far exceeding that of the 

 adjoining stone building, with its piscina and benitier. Such 

 primitive-looking monuments are occasionally to be met with, 

 principally in isolated spots, as the remoter western isles, &c. 

 They carry the mind back to times when the little cell or oratory 

 was constructed of wattles, long ere the rdigieux had time or 

 thought to bestow upon the marvellous sculpturings of a later 

 mediaeval age" (Archceological Sketches in Scotland, District of 

 Kintyre, by Captain T. P. White. Edin. and London, 1873, 

 p. 84). 



The other monument is extremely ornate in character, but the 

 corroding tooth of time, and the lichens encrusting its sculpturings, 

 have combined to obscure its story, while giving it a new beauty. 

 It is a large slab, '*' seven feet by two," and a curious feature at 

 the intersection of the arms of the cross is a central " cup-shaped 

 hollow, encircled by four similar hollows, one at each angle, the 

 five making a pretty pattern of a St. Andrew's Cross." . . . 

 "This slab," Captain White says, -is probably of early type, 

 though, as I have remarked, of quite a difierent class from its 

 unadorned neighbour." 



MAMMALS. — We saw nothing of any land mammal during 

 our brief visit, and, according to the lighthouse keepers, the only 

 mammal thev have is a shrew. Since our return one has been 

 received in the flesh by Mr. Hugh Boyd Watt from one of the 

 light-keepers. It proves to be the Lesser Shrew (Sorex minutus, 

 Linn.), which is the shrew of the Hebrides. 



BIRDS; — In this class the list is headed by the hardy Black- 

 bird {Turdus merula^ Linn.), of which several were seen. There 



