CHAPTER IV 

 BOYHOOD 



My dear mother was indefatigable in finding amusements 

 for me and for all the rest of the young people. Collect- 

 ing gulls' eggs on the islands of Loch Maree was a favourite 

 pastime. We went on many an expedition in May and 

 June, and, under the best of guides, Seumas Buidhe 

 (Yellow James), the weaver at Slatadale, and his big 

 apprentice, we used to get from 150 to 200 eggs in an 

 afternoon. With the exception of perhaps three or 

 four pairs of herring gulls and about the same number 

 of the greater black backs (which always bred singly 

 on isolated rocks), the whole gull population consisted 

 of thousands of lesser black backs, which are, I believe, 

 our only migratory gulls. Now, alas ! they are all but 

 gone. Before my time the great breeding-place of the 

 gulls was the big island of Eilean Ruaridh Mor (Rory's 

 Big Island). Then the gulls suddenly left, the popular 

 belief of the cause of their desertion being that some 

 party had gone birds '-nesting on a Sunday ! But I 

 believe my father cleared up the mystery ; he found out 

 that a shepherd with his dog had landed on the island in 

 the winter following the desertion of the gulls, and that 

 the dog had caught and killed a big pine marten. The 

 animal was so thin as to be little more than a skeleton ; 

 it had evidently driven the gulls to such a pitch of 



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