3r,4 Till': BRITISH ISLES. 



which surrouiuls them aboumls in animal and vegetable life. The margins of 

 beaches and rocks are covered with fucns, harbouring a multitude of molluscs and 

 other animals, for the most part of a boreal type ; several kinds of seaweed, such 

 as Rodomenin pahnata and IiUlwa edii/is, form part, under the name of " dulse," of 

 the alimentary resources of the country. Loch Fyne, one of the ramifications of the 

 Firth of Clyde, is famous for its herring fisheries, whilst nearly every river yields 

 salmon. Several varieties of this fish are of American origin. Pearls likewise are 

 fished up from the Scottish rivers, and have become fashionable. Altogether the 

 produce of the fisheries amounts to at least £5,000,000 sterling per annum. 



The marine fauna of the Shetland Islands is Norwegian rather than British. 

 The same fish are caught there as near the Norwegian Lofoten. When, in the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Maassluis and Ylaardingen had attained the 

 height of their prosperity, the sounds of Shetland were annually frequented by 800, 

 1,000, 1,500, or even more Dutch " busses " of 80 tons each, and escorted by twenty 

 men-of-war. This Dutch fishing fleet met in Bressay Sound, off Lerwick, which 

 became for the time one of the most bustling places in Europe. Swift " doggers " 

 carried the first herrings taken to Holland. At the present day the fisheries in 

 these seas are carried on almost exclusively by the British. 



All the four-footed animals of England are met with in Scotland, including even 

 the wild cat, which, however, has become scarce in the Highlands. About the middle 

 of the twelfth century the land fauna of Northern Scotland possessed a feature 

 in common with Scandinavia, which is now wanting. At that time the reindeer 

 still roamed through the forests of Caithness, where reindeer moss abounds even 

 now, and according to the sagas the Earls of Orkney annually crossed the sea to 

 hunt that animal, and the red deer. The great Scotch landowners still keep in 

 their parks wild cattle which some claim to be representatives of the aurochs, but 

 which zoologists declare to be merely a variety of our oxen. The stag is at present 

 the only large animal indigenous to the Highlands, and though Lithuanian 

 aurochsen, elks, American buffaloes, reindeer, and wapiti were introduced into the 

 parks, and readily adapted themselves to the climate, mo.st of them, owing to their 

 viciousness, had to be killed. The capercailzie, a Swedish bird introduced in 

 1837, has become common on the moors. The beaver, an ancient inhabitant of the 

 country, has been imported into Bute, where it flourishes. 



The fauna grows poorer in species with a restriction of area ; it is less varied 

 in Great Britain than on the continent, and suffers a further reduction in the 

 Orkneys and Hebrides. Many animals found on the mainland have never crossed 

 the sea into the neighbouring islands. Nowhere in these latter do we meet with 

 molehills, indicating the existence of an underground population. Rabbits are 

 unknown, as also were hares until recently. They have, however, become one of 

 the chief resources of the Orkneys, compensating in some measure for the cessation 

 in the export of seaweeds, which until 1832 were used in the manufacture of glass.* 

 The white hare has been introduced by sportsmen into Lewis, and when first seen 

 excited the fears of the natives, who took it for a phantom. St. Kilda has only 



* D. Gorrie, " Summers and Winters in \he Orknevs." 



