inhabiting the County of Sutherland. 157 



knowledge and information was found of essential service in fur- 

 thering the objects of the undertaking. From Mr Baigrie, in par- 

 ticular, the intelligent factor of the Scoonie and Assynt districts, 

 much interesting information relating to the salmon-fishery was 

 procured, as well as a detail of the experiments which for the last 

 two years have been, and are still in active operation at the va- 

 rious fisheries, to determine facts of essential importance to the 

 clearing up of the natural history of the salmon and its congeners, 

 especially of those species that are migratory, or inhabit at times 

 the salt as well as the fresh water ; but as the ichthyology of the 

 county has already engaged the pen of one of the party, it is un- 

 necessary to advert to it any further at present. The accuracy 

 of the lists, so far as they go, can be vouched for, the whole of 

 the birds, with the exception of the Scolopax Gallimda, having 

 come under the observation of the party ; and the quadrupeds 

 described were either seen alive, or their recent pelts examined, 

 :when in the possession of the fox-hunters, or regularly deputed 

 vermin-destroyers of the districts. In a wild, mountainous, and 

 ,thinly inhabited country, abounding in lochs and rivers, and 

 <whose zoology had previously been little attended to, it was na- 

 turally expected that some interesting facts connected with the 

 breeding, distribution, &c. of various species of birds, would re- 

 ward an excursion of this description. Nor were the party disap- 

 pointed, for they had the pleasure of ascertaining that the va- 

 rious interior fresh-water lochs are selected by that beautiful bird 

 the Black-throated Diver (Colymbus arcticus) for the rear- 

 ing of its offspring, and both eggs and young were for the first 

 time obtained. The Bean Goose ( Anser JeruSy Flem. J was also 

 frequently seen with its young upon some of the larger lochs ; 

 and the Wigeon (Mareca Penelope)^ Scaup Pochard (Fuli- 

 gula marila), and the Greenshank ( Totanus glottis), were for 

 the first time detected building in Britain. Among the warblers, 

 it is interesting to trace the extensive distribution of the Willow 

 Wren (Sylvia trochilus), and Sedge Warbler (Salicaria phrag" 

 mitis), both of which are found extending their migration to 

 the northern verge of the county, wherever situations at all suited 

 to their habits were met with. Two or three instances of the 

 Whitethroat fCurruca cinerea) were noticed at Tongue, but 

 *the want of woods, and other protecting cover, had arrested the 



