THE GLEN AND CASTLE OF URQUHART. 415 



quills, and secondaries, comes out in pretty bars, contrasting 

 pleasantly with the dark and chestnut brown, which may be said to 

 be the prevailing colour. The snow-fleck has hardly any song 

 beyond a tremulous twittering, and a few call-notes so loud and 

 shrill that in the strange and solemn calm that sometimes precedes 

 a snow-storm, they may be heard at a great distance. Our cor- 

 respondent should have stated where, when, and how the bird was 

 got, a knowledge of such matters vastly enhancing the interest and 

 value of a specimen, especially if it has any claims to be accounted 

 a rara avis. 



"We are indebted to our excellent Celtic friend, Mr, WUliam 

 Mackay, Inverness, for a copy of his exceedingly interesting 

 monograph on The Glen and Castle of Urquhart, one of the most 

 interesting spots in the Highlands. Mr. Mackay attempts to make 

 Glen Urquhart classic ground by associating the story of Dearduil 

 and Clann-TJisneachean, as related in the mediseval Gaelic ballads, 

 with the locality, by pointing out that there is a Dun Dearduil in 

 the neighbourhood — a place so called after the hapless heroine of 

 the ballad story. But in the old and unquestionably authentic 

 ballads her name is not Dearduil but Deirdri ; Deirdir and Daordir. 

 Dearduil is a much later form of the name, not older, Mr. J. F. 

 Campbell hints, than the Darthula of " Ossian " Macpherson. But 

 there are other Dun Dearduils besides that referred to by Mr. 

 Mackay ; one, for instance, near us in Glenevis ; and it is to be 

 observed that all the places so called are vitrified forts. An old 

 man in our neighbourhood, one of our best seannachies, always 

 speaks of the Glenevis vitrified fort as Dun Dearsail or Dearsuil, 

 and this is probably the correct form of the term, closely connectuig 

 it with dears and dtarsadh, to shine, a shining ; to beam and be 

 effulgently aglow like flame of fire. Eemembering that all the 

 places so called present more or less marked traces of vitrif action, 

 in the formation of which fire and fiame, on a large scale, must 



