188 STUDIES IN BIRD-MIGRATION 



heather. Crags and rocky faces present themselves on 

 the higher parts of Connacher and Mullach Sgail. 

 Beyond, to the north and east, the summit rims of 

 Oisaval, Connacher, and their connecting ridges present 

 to the Atlantic a line of magnificent cliffs, the finest in 

 the British Isles, ranging from 500 to 1262 feet in height. 

 These are the summer homes of many thousands of 

 Fulmars, and innumerable other rock-fowl — Guillemots, 

 Razorbills, Puffins, and Gulls — all of which, except the 

 Fulmars, had departed from these aerial nurseries, along 

 with their young, ere we arrived. 



The village, consisting of seventeen inhabited houses, 

 with the crofts back and front of it, lies between the 

 head of the bay and the foot of the hills, and its houses 

 front at intervals a curved footway or narrow street. The 

 beach is a massive rampart formed of sea-worn boulders, 

 at the foot of which, at low tide, a strip of silver sand is 

 exposed about its centre ; this was much sought by the 

 few wading birds that came under notice. 



The western half of the island consists of a valley 

 about three-quarters of a mile in length, and known as 

 ** The Glen." This is drained by a burn which 

 discharges itself, after a northerly course, into a wide 

 bay on the north-west side of the island. Like the 

 low land of the eastern half, it is surrounded on three 

 sides by hills, the highest of which are over iioo feet 

 on the east and south, and range from 1000 to 500 feet 

 on the west. This high ground also presents to the 

 Atlantic lofty, rugged cliffs and steep, grassy slopes 

 capped with naked rock, except at the mouth of the 

 Glen, where the coast is low and rocky. 



The cultivated ground around the village, with its 



