NOVEMBER, 1881. 87 



exact character of the prey over which they made such a 

 very great fuss. Three large herring boats returned 

 empty from our waters this week, so we need not have 

 cast aspersions on the character of the seals and the 

 dookers for not having given us notice of an arrival that 

 was wholly imaginary. There are herring in our loch, 

 but these are probably few in number and local, remain- 

 ing with us all the year ; as they do to a small extent in 

 most of our western lochs. We have seen few seals 

 lately, but one was art and part in the onslaught made 

 by the gulls, whatever may have been their prey. He 

 was so intent upon his meal that he allowed us to 

 approach very close, and watch him plunging not 20 yards 

 from shore. But as one swallow will not make a summer, 

 one seal and a pair of guillemots will not make a shoal 

 of fish. 



We had just donned our waterproofs in the afternoon, 

 and started for Ledaig to see how a south wind treated 

 the long sweep of bay, when the weather put on an extra 

 spurt, and we had not gone half a mile ere every weak 

 point had been discovered and made the most of by the 

 rain, driven along as it was with the utmost fury. We 

 had heard a distant grumble some time before, but, dis- 

 satisfied with the .result of soaking our extremities, the 

 " Clerk " began striking matches broadly across the land- 

 scape to see if he could peer more successfully down the 

 chinks of our muffled neck. The flashes of lightning for 

 a time were very fine, and would have been magnificent 

 but for a stretch of sky towards the north-west that 

 remained comparatively clear, and so prevented the 

 gloom that would otherwise have prevailed. This led us 

 to predict a change of wind in that direction, which 



