50 A HUNDEED YEARS 



exasperation by eating their eggs and young ones that 

 at last they had suddenly deserted Eilean Ruaridh Mor 

 and made for Garbh Eilean, Eilean Suthainn, and other 

 smaller islands where we used to go. It is interesting to 

 speculate how the marten got to the island, seeing that 

 Loch Maree never freezes. 



How certain memories stick to one through life ! 

 Never shall I forget one birds '-nesting expedition when 

 I was a very small boy, perhaps about six. I was 

 wandering alone through the tangle of dwarf trees and 

 tall heather intent on trying to get more eggs than 

 anyone else of the party, and had managed to fill every 

 pocket I had, besides having two or three eggs in each 

 little hand. Suddenly I slipped among the rocks, and 

 my reader can imagine the state my clothes and I were 

 in when I rose to my legs ! 



In June and July our expeditions consisted in going 

 to one of the best trout lochs in Scotland, Loch na 

 h-Oidhche (the Night Loch), so called because the trout 

 in it were supposed to take all night long. Fly was never 

 thought of. We had three or four stiff larch rods with 

 rowan tops, string for lines, and a hook at the end baited 

 with earth-worms. Two men rowed the boat, we 

 trolled the lines behind, and we used to get perhaps from 

 80 to 100 lovely golden-yellow trout, from half a pound 

 to a pound in weight. They ran rather heavier on the 

 Gorm Lochanan (Blue Lakelets) a little beyond Loch 

 na h-Oidhche. Sometimes we put up at the Poca 

 buidhe (Yellow Bag) bothy, but its roof in those days 

 was very leaky, and there was little to be gained by 

 being under its protection. 



