2 1 4 Notes on Sport and Travel i 



as a rabbit is being dug out of his burrow, I doubted. 

 As they seem ahvays to have been built within sight 

 of each other, some people have supposed that they 

 were watch-towers, and those on the coast may have 

 answered the purpose well enough. Most of the 

 inland ones do not, however, seem situated on very 

 good look-out points, and in old times, when the 

 country was covered with wood, must have been 

 useless for that purpose ; unless, indeed, they were 

 there before the woods. When the minister of Reay 

 amused himself by pulling them to pieces, about a 

 hundred years ago, he found nothing in them but 

 wee querns, and deer's bones, and antlers. He gives 

 drawings of them, with rude stone roofs, with a small 

 hole in the top ; but I suspect that he confounded 

 those mysterious slab-built Uags with the real hour- 

 glass tower. The Bishop of Ossory, who was 

 antiquity -hunting in Sutherland about the same 

 time, found many of them entire ; I wish I could 

 now.' 



' Weel, sir, some do say that they kept their corn 

 in them ; and the old folks say that the good people 

 are very fond of being about them, but I cannot say 

 much about that. If you want to see a good one 

 you must go to Dun-Dornadilla, on the road to 

 Loch Hope.' 



' Ay, that's the best of them now. The one 

 built by King Cole in Strath-dhu is, I hear, very 

 tumble-down, I have seen very perfect chambers 

 in the one in Golspie Glen, and have wormed my 



