IN THE HIGHLANDS 267 



again, and found them in quantities in the lowest part 

 of the peat, where it rested on the subsoil. I had other 

 bogs examined, and there they were also found among 

 the compressed brown sphagnum below a great depth 

 of solid black peat. So I sent them, this time unwashed, 

 to my friend Mr. Lindsay, who in his reply said that at 

 first he was in doubt as to whether they were whin or 

 broom seeds, but on comparing them with modern 

 seeds of both these shrubs, he had come to the conclusion 

 that they were whin seeds. Notwithstanding my having 

 perfect faith in Mr. Lindsay (as a botanist), I cannot take 

 in the idea that these seeds are whin. Neither the whin 

 nor the broom is a native plant here. One hundred 

 years ago the only broom plants in the district were a 

 few sown round the garden of my far-back predecessors 

 in this place — the Mackenzies of Lochend of that day — 

 and the first whins that ever grew anywhere near here 

 were produced from seed sown by a certain Kev. Mr. 

 Macrae, a minister on the Poole we glebe, and some sown 

 also by a member of the Letterewe family at Udrigil. 

 It is certain it was not an indigenous plant here in modern 

 times,whatever it might have been in the beetle days, and 

 there can be no doubt that the shrubs or plants which 

 produced these seeds lived contemporaneously with the 

 beetles. 



We now find hazel, birch, alder, and willow in the 

 most perfect state at the bottom of the bogs, with the 

 silvery bark on the former kinds as perfect as when they 

 were growing, but no one has found the gnarled, twisted 

 stems of the whin or broom in any bog in this country. 

 A most intelligent man, who has taken a very lively 

 interest in these seeds, has put forward the theory that 



