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THE CRAIG OF AILSA. 



BY GEORGE DONALDSON, ESQ, 

 Eead before the Natural History Society of Glasgow. 



It has frequently been a matter of considerable surprise to me, that so 

 little notice has been taken of a place so admirably adapted by nature for 

 our instruction, and which in my opinion has been completely overlooked, at 

 all events by the Ornithologist, and ray surprise is increased when I find 

 that Macgillivray and Audubon, when visiting the Bass together, as they 

 did in 183o, should have overlooked the Craig. In no instance can I quote 

 the practical remarks of any interested in the science; and it is only an 

 occasional reference which points out its existence at all as an aviary, and 

 that too in such a remote way as would scarcely induce one to visit it, so 

 that it is more with a view of bringing it prominently before you that I 

 have been induced to make the present remarks, than for any information 

 which may be obtained from me, and that it may pave the way for some 

 of the members of this Society, at some future period, to furnish us with 

 much detail that I must have overlooked. 



Independent of its attractions as one of the greatest breeding situations 

 in this country, it possesses many other beauties; and I have no doubt that 

 both the Geologist and the Botanist have found much there to interest them; 

 (and although rather deficient in both of these sciences,) I could not help 

 gazing in astonishment from the base, at its majestic and precipitous grandeur, 

 and this arises not so much from its height, (which is computed at only 

 twelve hundred feet,) as from the insolated position which it occupies.* The 

 incessant screaming and croaking of myriads of Sea-Gulls, Solan Geese, Razor- 

 bills, and Guillemots, during the summer, is beyond description, and renders it 

 in my opinion a scene rarely to be met with. This extraordinary confusion of 

 tongues is a striking contrast to the silence which prevails during the winter 

 months, for, with the exception of the hollow croak of the Raven, and the 

 occasional scream of a storm-stead Sea-Gull, all is hushed up. 



How and when the rock came here would be quite as difficult for me to 

 account for, as the production of either Dumbarton Castle or the Bass 

 Rock, unless we acquiesce in the popular tradition of its removal from out of 

 the hill of Knockgirran, in the parish of Dailey, in Ayrshire, and being cast 

 into the sea through the mystic influence of a witch called Maggie Osborne, 

 as a stepping-stone for her from Currick into Cantyre: as this hypothesis is 

 rather doubtful, we must fall back upon geological authority, and acknow- 

 ledge a primary formation with a proportion of basalt. 



I am afraid you would find it a tedious narrative were I to enter into 



* J. W. Naul, a smuggler, was cast ashore here about fifty years agn, with part of his wreck. 

 He lived three months upon it, during the winter subsisting entirely upon Limpits, {Patella 

 vidf/ata,) Dog "Wilks, (Purpura lapillas,) and a cask of French Brandy, (requiring no inter- 

 pretation,) which had been washed ashore with him. 



VOL. IV. R 



