Q074 Thk Zoologist— Apiul, 1870. 



llie sailors building wooden slianlees or turf huls, while sailing-pans, 

 barrels and casks lie on the beach. 



The noble bay, with the piclnresqne ruins of Kisiniul Castle, — the 

 caslle of the famous McNeils of Barra, — the herring-boats, brigs and 

 steamers, with the barren archipelago of islands, forn) a lovely scene — 

 lovely in spile of the raw, chill air, gray and lowering sky, with a sub- 

 dued and pensive lone, as if Nature were mourning ihe barrenness of 

 these islands. Not a shrub, not a bush is seen ; bare, bleak rock 

 crojiping out of scanty grass nioliled with stunted heather; naked 

 black rocks ])ceping up above the seething waves ; a sail here and 

 there; and far, far across tlic Minch, dim as vanished hopes, Skye 

 with its splintered peaks and Riun with ils cloud-capped hills. 



Casting off from the fish-tainted jetty, we skim past the castle, 

 which is degraded into a fish-cuiing station, round which quantities 

 nf gulls are hovering: tlie kiltiwake is by far ihe most plentiful; 

 it here takes the place of the common gull, whicli further north is 

 found in every bay and ford. The herring gull hazily sails overhead, 

 while the lesser blackback is floating a little way off, more wary than 

 the lonely kiltiwake, which is hovering round within arm's length, 

 j)icking up refuse of herring. 



The wind is dead a-head, and we shall have a rough passage, for 

 we shall have to take the Atlantic side of the island. At the 

 entrance of the bay we see a small rock completely covered with 

 kittiwakes, sitting gorged after their unclean feast: they mosily roost 

 here at night, not going to the ledges of Barra Mead, as these are 

 mostly barren : as we skim past them we observe that several are in 

 various stages of plumage, but the larger portion are in adult plumage. 



Slowly beating up the Sound of Vatersay we emerge into the dread 

 Atlantic, on whose huge billows our tiny boat is tossed and tortured. 

 We pass within a stone's throw of Flodday and Lingay, small rocky 

 islels for pasturing sheep : great numbers of arctic terns [Sterna 

 (irctica) are dancing and flickering over the dull sullen waves, having 

 just arrived at these their breeding stations. Slowly forging past the 

 island of Palla, we sail close to the land, almost on the top of the 

 gigantic billows, which with terrific force dash against the black 

 jirecipices, thundering into the huge caverns with sullen roar — 

 caverns gloomy, rent, terrible as the mouth of Hades : rock pigeons 

 in numbers dash out, flitting with swift flight along the black rock 

 and over the top of the cliffs. 



But see those while patches defiling the black cliff: they are the 



