THE ORKNEYS TO THUKSO. 31 



Leicester or Southdown in their keery. At "sheep- 

 run day" the owners used to meet, with whisky, 

 cheese, and bread, on the hills or shore, and examine 

 the marks before clipping. Petticoats, frocks, and 

 blankets for home use were all made of the fleece, as 

 well as a favourite black-and-white serge, which was 

 once much worn in Burray. The marks would have 

 puzzled a weird to decipher, as on the main land alone 

 there were nearly a thousand. The " fordren elm" 

 mark was a piece out of the fore part of the ear, and 

 the slit and hole variations on it were legion. Rigid 

 laws were in force about overmarking j and Orca- 

 dian invention had to exhaust itself on rags of many 

 colours sewed into different portions of the wool. One 

 proprietor gave the cottars three years' notice to claim 

 and take away their sheep, and then he made a clean 

 sweep of the marks by simply cutting the ears off. The 

 days of such communism are over now. At first the 

 Orcadians were quite moved about their "rights," and 

 it was only when their sheep had been seized, and a 

 few Dutch auctions had come off, that they bowed 

 their heads to a more rational regime. Mr. Archer 

 Fortescue was very decisive on the Orkney mainland, 

 and well supported by the other landlords ; and we 

 remember how, on our first walk from .Stromness to 

 Swanbinster, one of these ex-flockmasters described 

 him as quite " a man of wrath," and conjured us not 

 to set foot on his hill land, even if we did save a 

 mile thereby. 

 Mr. Malcolm Laing brought in the Merinoes more 



