388 Proceedings of the Royal. Physical Society. 
In such an area it might naturally have been expected 
that some of the rarer species of carnivorous mammals, such 
as the Wild Cat, the Marten, the Polecat, and the Badger, 
might find an asylum wherein they would be, to some extent 
at least, free from that relentless persecution which is slowly 
but surely effecting their extermination in Britain. It is 
disappointing to make known the fact that such is not the 
case. Even in remote West Ross these species are now not 
only exceedingly rare, but on the very verge of extinction. 
While the day of these rare furred carnivores is past and 
gone, yet, thanks to the protecting influence of the deer 
forests, through their sanctuarial character, their feathered 
prototypes the Golden Eagle, the Buzzard, the Peregrine 
Falcon, and the Merlin, still abide in some numbers. Thanks 
also to the same protecting cause, the Black and Red- 
throated Divers still find a summer retreat in the forest 
lochs, 
A remarkable feature in the ornithology of West Ross is 
the almost entire absence of bird-life over wide stretches of 
country. On the moorlands birds are singularly sparsely 
scattered; and though the Red Grouse, the Curlew, the 
Golden Plover, the Greenshank, the Ring Ouzel, and the 
Meadow Pipit are represented, yet in certain districts one 
may walk for hours over what would elsewhere be suitable 
haunts for these species, without catching a glimpse of their 
forms or being made aware of their presence through their 
cries. Nor is bird-life more abundantly represented in the 
valleys and lowlands of Torridon and Applecross. Indeed, 
we find such common and characteristic species as the 
Lapwing and the Skylark so extremely limited in their 
numbers, and so very local in their distribution, that a 
casual visitor would almost be justified in regarding them as 
absent; and yet localities eminently suitable—to all appear- 
ance—for these and other species are many. 
The cause of this remarkable dearth of ground-building 
species among birds is not, we think, far to seek, and has 
’ already been alluded to in our remarks upon the climatic 
and geological peculiarities of the area. Thus the rainfall we 
know to be excessive; while the nature and lie of the rocks 
