A RAID ON SUTHERLAND. 455 



One of the days we landed on the island ; and I shall not 

 easily forget it. A sky of unbroken sunshine was reflected in 

 the calm bright loch ; and the bracken, the harebell, and the 

 wild hyacinth, growing in rank luxuriance, fragrant and beauti- 

 ful, made the little islet look like a sparkling gem in its setting 

 of silver. Warned by the colony of lesser black-backed gulls, 

 the whole fleet of geese had sailed out from the island, and 

 were riding at anchor about a mile off. There seemed up- 

 wards of a hundred, and with the telescope I plainly saw a 

 good many goslings. Four of these bean-geese have been 

 reared from the egg at the inn. Every morning they strutted 

 past with drowsy cackle, pompously guarding their solitary 

 gosling. They cracked and chewed oat- cake or biscuit vora- 

 ciously. By getting plenty of food without the trouble of 

 seeking it, the enlarged power of digestion has so increased 

 the size of their bodies that the wings are too weak to carry 

 them. As Professor Lowe pithily says, they remain " captives 

 without a chain." 



Only one couple of the greater black-backed or giant gull 

 haunted Loch Layghal. They were easily distinguished by 

 their size and more sulky trumpet. This pair always met 

 our boat half-way down the loch, but the lesser ones seldom 

 noticed us unless we approached the islet. Eoss's " boy," who 

 attended us on that day, was a fine active young fellow of 

 two-and-twenty, with a keen eye for a deer, or any other shy 

 creature ; and I may say for his father, 1 that it was quite 

 refreshing to meet with a man who had taught himself so 

 much of the practical part of natural history. His very errors 

 are sharp ones ; for instance, when we saw a common sand- 

 piper, he told me they all passed the winter in flocks on the 

 sea-shore. This mistake was very natural : he perceived that 



1 Robert Ross died in the spring of 1876. On one of my last trips to Suther- 

 land I called on him, when he pathetically said, " I wad like weel, Mr Colquhoun, 

 to creep to the lochs and see you fish aince niair." His youngest brother John 

 has always been my fishing-guide since Robert was laid on the shelf, and a better 

 could not have been found. 



