Ben More Mull 



always draws in a cool breeze from the sea, which at a 

 height of over three thousand feet is usually chilly even in 

 the finest of weather. 



I do not think the snow bunting nests on Ben More, 

 though one summer's day I fancied I heard his song carry- 

 ing up from a stony corrie lying north-west of the summit 

 cairn. Indeed, bird life is very scarce on the hill — an odd 

 grouse on the lower slopes and a few ptarmigan near the 

 summit. No golden plover nest here, and on all the hills 

 of Mull there are only a very few of these birds in the 

 season of their nesting. Where the hill rises from Loch 

 nan Ceall, numbers of curlew have their nests on a strip 

 of boggy ground, but these birds do not ascend far, for 

 the ground soon becomes dry and rock-strewn and unsuited 

 to their habits. 



I think Ben More Mull must be the most western hill 

 of Scotland on which ptarmigan have their home. From 

 what other hill in this country could one stand at a ptar- 

 migan's nest and actually see the heavy Atlantic swell 

 breaking almost at one's feet, with at times even the boom 

 of the surf in one's ears as it breaks on the reefs by 

 MacKinnon's Cave, away beyond the dark Gribun rocks? 



A wild stretch of country lies before one from the 

 summit cairn. Hill and loch and rocky island. Through 

 the maze of hills this June day, the narrow Sound of Mull 

 threaded its way, the blue of the reflecting sky, and on its sun- 

 bathed waters the white sails of passing ships were vividly 

 contrasted with the dark blue of the sea. Eastward, beyond 

 the Firth of Lome, lay the great hills of the mainland; 

 Cruachan, with its twin peaks and, rising straight from Crian- 

 larich, many miles distant, the conical hill known as Ben 

 More, on which the snow lingers till well on in summer. 

 Then, bearing north, the great range of the Glen Coe Hills, 

 with Ben Nevis, their chief, still carrying big snowfields on 

 its upper slopes. Lying well sheltered in its land-locked bay, 

 the town of Oban showed mistily through a thin blue smoke 



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