NOETHERX SCOTLAND. 355 



one wild m.imraiil — tlie mouse ; even rats have not yet appeared there.* Various 

 animals imported into the islands have grown smaller, owing to the influence of 

 their surroundings. Amongst these are the spirited and indefatigable Shetland 

 ponies, or shelties. Several birds, including the partridge, have, like rabbits and 

 foxes, stopped short at the straits which separate the Scottish main from the 

 Western Isles. Sea-birds, however, abound ; for the rocky coasts of the Hebrides, 

 Orkney?, and Shetland Islands present the same advantages as breeding grounds as 

 do the cliffs of the mainland. In species no less than in individuals they are pro- 

 digiously numerous, and the solan geese which perch on the ro(;lvS of St. Kilda have 

 been estimated at 200,000. f Several sea-birds, including the common fulmar 

 {ProceUaria glacialk), breed only on certain islands. One species of bird has 

 undoubtedly died out : we mean the great auk [Alca impennis) of the Orkneys, which 

 has not been seen since 1824. Amongst the marvels of the islands, and more 

 especially of the Orkneys, writers of the Middle Ages, and even zoologists of the 

 last century, enumerate a curious shell which grows into a tree, and bears ducks 

 and geese instead of fruit. This strange fable maj"- be traced even through the 

 earliest volumes of the Philosophical Transactions, and Linnaeus himself alludes to it 

 when he calls a species of cirripede an anati/er, or " duck-bearer." 



The People. 



Who were the earliest inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands ? Of what race 

 were the Picts, who formerly inhabited the country, and over whom even the 

 Romans could not triumph ? Were they pure Celts, or had their blood already 

 mingled with that of Scandinavians ? It is usually believed that the Picts had 

 separated themselves from the other Britons at a very early age, and that their 

 idioms differed much more from the dialects spoken in Gaul than did Cymraig. 

 They originally inhabited, perhaps, the whole of Great Britain, and were pushed 

 to the northward by the Britons, who in turn were displaced by Romans and 

 Saxons. 



Numerous stone monuments, known as Picts' " houses," or weems, and invariably 

 consisting of a chamber or centre passage surrounded by smaller apartments, are 

 attributed to these aborigines. The mainland, and to a great extent the islands, 

 abound in broughs, or borgs ; that is, towers of defence, resembling, at least 

 externalh', the nuraghe of Sardinia. On the Shetland Islands there are seventy- 

 five of these towers, and in the Orkneys seventy. Pétrie, who has examined 

 forty of them, looks upon them as fortified dwelling-houses. Their circular 

 walls are 12 feet and more in thickness ; their original height is not known, for 

 every one of them has reached us in a partial state of demolition. Pestles for 

 crushing corn, stone lamps, and vessels made of the bone of whales testify to the 

 rudimentary state of civilisation which the inhabitants had attained. The Brough 

 of !Mousa, to the south of Lerwick, bulges out near its base, probably to prevent 



* Macaulay, "A Voyage to and History of St. Kilda." 

 t G. Seton, "St. Kilda, Past and Present." 



