22 FIELD AND FERN. 



Rousay men will be " Mares" to the end of the 

 chapter, because their learned legates quite over- 

 looked the necessity of bringing back a sire, when 

 they executed their horse commission upon the main 

 land. The natural bias of its sons towards the rich 

 soil of Stronsey is aptly typified by "Limpets/' 

 Harra does not touch the coast, and therefore " Let 

 be for let be/" as the Harra man said to the crab, 

 when he clutched it in his first wanderings by " the 

 s ad sea waves," has constituted them " Crabs" for all 

 time. It is in these epithets that the Orcadians, if 

 they have a difference, hurl their mutual scorn, and 

 a bloody nose is sometimes the sequel. The Shapin- 

 sey " Sheep" are just as touchy as any of them. On 

 one occasion, when they were cutting peats in a thick 

 fog on the Foot, they were assailed with " Baa> 

 Bactj" from a passing boat. Flinging their spades 

 and tuskars aside, they pursued the aggressors in 

 a boat, with threats of condign vengeance, half way 

 to Stronsey, and then found that they were only 

 sheep after all. 



The eye of Washington Irving never rested on the 

 maroon and green velvet of the Orkney caves ; but 

 Shapinsey, which his parents quitted six months be- 

 fore his birth, was the home of his kith and kin for 

 many generations. This island is six miles by three, 

 and the sole property of Mr. Balfour. With the ex- 

 ception of a few primitive patches of grass and 

 heather, it is now all reclaimed. The acreage under 

 plough has increased from seven hundred in 1848 



