North- West Coasts of BiUlierland and their Bird Life. 491 



dunlin and golden plover, and with but few lochs to enliven 

 or brighten up its dreariness. The bold mountain, however, 

 of Fashhhein is a redeeming feature, and was ever present to 

 our view as we drove along. 



Arriving at the lighthouse, I met Mr Goodsir, the light- 

 house-keeper, and had a conversation with him on the subject 

 of the migration of birds at the lighthouse. Few birds appear 

 to strike the light, but vast numbers of solan geese and rock 

 birds are seen passing westward daily and hourly in the 

 autumn, as is more fully recorded in some of our Migration 

 Schedules and Eeports. Except a few gulls and a colony of 

 cormorants on the stack — which forms the Cape — there are 

 few birds breeding on the cliffs between Cape Wrath and 

 Cearvig Bay. There is a pair of peregrines close to the light- 

 house. 



A well, intended to be used by the people at the light- 

 house, and having a path formed down the cliff to it, and 

 situated in a "slack" or gully 250 feet at least above the sea, 

 has never been used. It is impregnated with salt, driven up 

 by the great storms to this height, saturating the soil and 

 rock around. 



I went to the top of the lighthouse (a revolving red and 

 white light). It is one of the earliest built in Scotland. Some 

 of the reflectors bear the date of 1838. 



The view from Cape Wrath towards the south includes 

 Sandwood Bay and the cliffs beyond its entrance, and Bulgie 

 Island, and the high rugged coast between. Inland are the 

 rolling moors and hills already described. To the west and 

 north is the open sea. Lewis is visible in clear weather, 

 but it is only very rarely indeed that the light of the Butt 

 lighthouse can be seen at night, and then only at ebb-tide. 

 It is some 60 miles distant. Eona and Souliskeir are 

 easily and distinctly seen in clear weather, and nearer — 

 within a mile of the Cape and nearly due north, looking 

 almost within stone-cast of the balcony of the lighthouse — 

 lies the dangerous rock of Dhuslag, on which a vessel called 

 the " Captain of Hull " was wrecked. Eastwards is seen 

 Far-out Head, and nearer, Garbh Island and the high cliffs 

 culminating in Clo-More, Cearvig, sands, and shepherd's 



