8'2i TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



towards the village, which was only completed last year, 

 and which has greatly improved the facilities for landing 

 and embarking. 



The present cottages were built about 45 years ago by 

 the then proprietor of the island, Sir John MacLeod. 

 Formerly the people lived m small oblong stone hovels, 

 with domed, thatched roofs, which from their appearance 

 have not inaptly been designated " bee-hive houses." 

 Many of these houses still exist ; they alternate with the 

 ones now inhabited in the little line of the village street, 

 and are now used as barns, storehouses and byres. One 

 of them, however, is still inhabited by an old avoid an, 

 named MeCrimmon, the last of her race, who lives in it 

 all by herself. These old housas are oblong structures, 

 with rounded ends, built of large unhewn stones and 

 boulders, the walls being about five to six feet in height 

 and of great thickness — four feet, and even more ; no 

 mortar has been used in their construction, the interstices 

 between the stones being filled in with soil. The roof, 

 which is high-pitched and dome-shaped, is set back some 

 two feet or more from the outer line of the wall, and is 

 constructed internally of timber, which is thickly covered 

 with turf and coarse thatch, the whole forming a distinct 

 though oval dome, which when looked at on end has much 

 the appearance of a gigantic beehive. Interiorly the 

 space was divided into two by a wooden or stone partition, 

 on one side of which the domestic animals were kept in 

 winter, and on the other side was the general living and 

 sleeping apartment, the beds being built into the side of 

 the wall. The solitary one of these houses now occupied, 

 already referred to, presents us at the present day with a 

 picture of the ancient mode of life. The centre of the 

 living apartment was occupied at the time of my visit by 

 a peat fire, divided off from the rest of the floor by a low 



