HARD WICKE ' S S CIENCE- G SSIF. 



205 



/the only instance I have ever met with. I have had 

 two or three clutches of six sent to me from Shrop- 

 shire, which all show the two types of egg. 



One of the clutches of six eggs sent to me by Mr. 

 Lawrence Copeland gave the following weights, 

 which I consider rather unusual, i.e. 133?, 133, 

 i33h 1304, 130. 127 grains. 



I fear I have taken up this matter too late in the 

 day ; nevertheless, I most sincerely hope some young 

 naturalist will carry on this investigation to see if the 

 relation between colour and fertility can be firmly 

 established. 



It will, perhaps, be scarcely discreet for me to 



mention the number of clutches an investigation of 



this kind will require to be carefully examined, 



fearing another storm of invective may be hurled at 



me by your correspondent, Mr. E. W. H. Blagg. 



Joseph P. Nunn. 

 J^oystoii. 



IN SUTHERLAND. 

 By Dr. P. Q. Keegan. 



ALAND, wild, rugged, cheerless, mountainous, 

 varied occasionally with pleasant fertile vales 

 and cheery, open, seaboard scenes. A land where 

 bossy and hillocky tracts of the most extraordinary 

 extent and monotony are relieved by mountain peaks 

 and projections of the most striking and impressive 

 picturesqueness. Sometimes there seems what is a 

 rolling plain, bare and bleak, or an elevated plateau 

 mottled with countless lochs ; but anon these give 

 way to a disrupted country with clustered ranges, 

 abrupt or acclivitous, shooting up in sharp jagged 

 peaks, or prolonged in broad -based, lumpish masses. 

 But everywhere there seems to be a contention 

 between land and water as to which shall have the 

 sovereignty. The result is, that the prevalent uni- 

 formity of desolation is charmingly harmonized by 

 the radiant faces of bright lakes, and the ever-winsome 

 livery of flower-mantled tarns. On the coast the sea 

 has deeply eroded and tunnelled into the land in long, 

 winding kyles, bays, and estuaries, leaving on the 

 outskirts or in the offing' numerous stacks, islets, 

 and spiry rocks — the vestiges of its sway. Every- 

 where, too, there are streams and lakes innumerable. 

 A chain of large lakes, straight or sinuous, extends 

 from the seaboard inwards from the north, and 

 another from the west ; most of the interior, indeed, 

 is simply a vast network of lochs and lochans, the 

 sum-total of which, in any one space or district, is 

 sometimes extraordinary. In the parish of Assynt, 

 for instance, an area of about 119,600 acres, three 

 hundred is the traditional number, and two hundred 

 and fifty have been actually reckoned and mapped. 

 Their aspect, situation, and environment are as 

 multifold as their number. How exquisite they are, 

 embroidered with white-lily chalices, lying in their 



lonesome beds amid the rugged knolls and bosses ot 

 cold, grey gneiss ! Who that has once threaded 

 these lonesome, secluded defiles, where the roadway 

 winds now sinuous and utterly sequestered, and 

 anon suddenly ushering in a fairy scene of lily-mottled 

 lochan, can ever forget the thrill of the impression t 

 How still and peaceful is the scene ! These rocks we 

 skirt are the very foundation stones of the earth's 

 crust, fixed fast and immovable. No brisk or cheery 

 streamlet or sweet tinkling rill breaks the solemn 

 silence becoming to a reverend antiquity. No sound, 

 conscious or unconscious, of recondite molecular 

 movement in the heart of rock or stone, or in the 

 hollows of the ground, is perceptible. Here, if any- 

 where, the constituent particles of matter would seem 

 to enjoy a condition of absolute repose. The powers 

 of the heavens and of the earth are unmoved, im- 

 movable. The equilibrium of force has been seem- 

 ingly attained, and a stern and rigid statical stability 

 is the impressive result. 



Standing on the crest of Cnoc Poll, about ten miles 

 north-west of Lochinver, the peculiar features of the 

 West Sutherland landscape can be fittingly discerned. 

 Here is exhibited a panoramic view of a vast series 

 of isolated and highly picturesque mountains, ex- 

 tending from Foinaven on the north to the Gairloch 

 hills on the south, a line about sixty miles long. 

 Again, on the south shore of Gruinard Bay, in Ross- 

 shire, there is a capital station, looking northward, 

 for viewing the alternative succession of lumpish 

 hills, one projected beyond its neighbour, their long 

 axes lying apparently due east and west — a series 

 of mountains completely isolated, yet seemingly adja- 

 cent, and all, like Wordsworth's feeding cattle, with 

 their faces turned in one and the same direction. 

 This landscape includes Benmore, Coigach, Stack 

 Polly, Coulbeg, Coulmore, Suilven, Quinag, and 

 Foinaven, while on the right eastwards are the 

 magnificent Teallach peaks of Ross. Here, round 

 about this remote, retired spot, are scattered a 

 few human habitations of a very primitive descrip- 

 tion. They are such as we find reared in the 

 dreary bog-plateaux in all parts of the northern main- 

 land of Scotland and of the Isles. Their wretched, 

 swinish, begrimed character has often been depicted ; 

 but the utter sequestration of their situation renders 

 them, perhaps, less ostentatious than what would 

 otherwise be ; and they shelter a race of men and 

 women in whom, not seldom, we can detect the 

 harmonies of nature unjarred by contact with the 

 material and the mechanical, and prepared even yet 

 to contend strenuously for the sovereignty of man's 

 native ideas over artificial trappery and the so-called 

 practical. 



Geology. 



To anybody accustomed to survey the more com- 

 monly occurrent geological formations, or the com- 

 moner species of strata in England or elsewhere, the 



