IN ASSYNT. 145 



Little has been written respecting the district of Assynt itself, 

 but two or three books may be recommended to those who 

 would have a general knowledge of Sutherlandshire. First 

 must come A History of the Earldom of Sutherland, by 

 Sir Robert Gordon, written in 1630, but not published until 

 1813. It contains a celebrated passage on the fauna of the 

 county, but many of the creatures' names require an antiquarian 

 to identify them. "All these forrests and schases are verie 

 profitable for feiding of bestiall, and delectable for hunting. 

 They are full of reid deer and roes, wulffs, foxes, wyld cates, 

 brocks, skuyrrels, whittrets, weasels, otters, martrixes, hares, and 

 fumarts. In these forrests and in all this province, ther is great 

 store of partriges, pluivers, capercaleys, blackwaks, mure-fowls, 

 heth-hens, swanes, bewters, turtle-doves, herons, dowes, steares 

 or stirlings, lairigigh or kuag (which is a foull lyk unto a paroket, 

 or parret, which maks place for her nest with her beck in the 

 oak tree), duke, draig, widgeon, teale, wildgouse, ringouse, routs, 

 whaips, shot-whaips, wookcok, larkes, sparrowes, snyps, black- 

 burds or osills, meweis, thrushes, and all other kinds of wild 

 foull and birds, which ar to be had in any pairt of this 

 Jdngdome " (p. 3). Save the vermin in this list, the " weasels, 

 martrixes," &c., the generality of these birds and beasts yet 

 flourish in Assynt, though their numbers and distribution have, 

 of course, been greatly affected by the system of preserving 

 game. The chronicler occasionally deals in the marvellous, as 

 when he tells us of certain forked-tail deer inhabiting a moun- 

 tain called Arkill, and still more amusingly (though the air of 

 the county deserves the compliment), " ther is not a ratt in 

 Sutherland, and if they doe come thither in shipps from other 

 pairts (which often happeneth), they die presentlie, how soone 

 they doe smell the aire of that countrey, and (which is strange) 

 their is a great store and abundance of them in Catteynes, the 

 verie next adjacent province " (p. 7). For sea-birds and fishing, 

 Wilson's Voyage Round the West Coast of Scotland is useful. 



