46 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



spur or root on the right, ornamented with portions of small 

 sticks. Herberton Scrub, May. 



Sketch 5. — Depicts a play-ground with two miniature 

 "humpy "-like structures, built with growing ferns, roofed 

 over with small twigs. Five or six of these little arbour-like 

 places, which are about 10 inches high, belong to one play- 

 ground. Herberton Scrub, May. 



III. The Summer Birds of the Summer Islands. By J. B. 

 DOBBIE, RK.S.E., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



(Read 19th January 1898.) 



The Summer Islands form a group of some thirty small 

 islets lying in outer Loch Broom. They are most easily 

 reached from Achiltibuie, West Eoss-shire, where good 

 sailing-boats can be had. Tanera More, which is the 

 largest of the group, is only about 2\ miles distant from 

 Achiltibuie ; while Priest Island, the most remote of all, is 

 about 7^ miles from that starting-point. 



With the exception of Tanera More, these islands are 

 uninhabited. Tanera More is rather more than a mile and 

 a half long, and not quite one and a quarter mile broad. It 

 supports a population of over a hundred souls. We know, 

 however, from the " Statistical Accounts," that some of the 

 other islands were formerly inhabited ; and on Priest Island 

 there are still to be seen traces of human dwellings. 



The Summer Islands are, with hardly an exception, rugged 

 and precipitous. They, no doubt, owe their singularly 

 inappropriate and misleading name to the circumstance that 

 in summer they are used by the crofters as feeding-grounds 

 for a few cattle and sheep. They are bleak and barren in 

 the extreme, and those visited seemed incapable of supporting 

 any but the hardiest forms of vegetable life. The two puny 

 rowans on Priest Island were the only apologies for trees 

 which we observed on the whole group of islands. The 

 caves are, as a rule, decorated with sea-spleen wort ; while 

 the unsightly lochs on Priest Island have their presence 



