VI PREFACE. 



in addition to his almost perfect library of the literature 

 of the two groups of islands, possesses a very fine and 

 extensive collection of their antiquities, commencing from 

 the old stone age down to more modern times. 



To Mr. T. W. Ranken we are indebted for many 

 notes not only his own, but those that were made by 

 his father, all of which are of great interest. Mr. 

 Ranken's brother-in-law being the proprietor of Eday, 

 has enabled him to give us all available information 

 concerning that island. From Mr. Irvine-Fortescue we 

 'have received a large number of most interesting and 

 valuable notes, made out with the greatest care, and 

 evidently written by a man who is both a sportsman 

 as well as a naturalist, and who is not in the least 

 likely to lead one astray by any rash statement. Mr. 

 E. S. Cameron, besides giving us the use of all the 

 information he had collected from various quarters, 

 kindly drove us to many places on the Mainland, thus 

 enabling us to visit with ease what it would otherwise 

 have cost us much trouble and inconvenience to do. It 

 is to his care and protection that the birds have been 

 allowed to increase and multiply on Eynhallow in the 

 way they have done. Mr. Watt, the owner of Skaill 

 House one of the oldest and most interesting mansions 



