[N°. 137—140. ] REPORTS AND PAPERS. 325 
“Two days after we saw it, Alexander Macmillan, boat-builder 
at Dornie, was fishing in a boat in the entrance of Lochduich, 
halfway between Druidag and Castledonan, when he saw the ani- 
mal near enough to hear the noise and see the ripple it made in 
rushing along in the sea. He says, that what seemed its head was 
followed by four or more lumps, or “half-rounds’, as he calls them, 
and that they sometimes rose and sometimes sank all together. He 
estimated its length as not less than sixty and eighty fect. He saw 
it also in two subsequent days in Lochduich. On all these occasions 
his brother Farquhar was with him in the boat, and they were 
both much alarmed and pulled to the shore in great haste.” 
“A lady at Duisdale, in Skye, a place overlooking the part of 
the Sound which is opposite the opening of Lochourn said that 
she was looking out for the glass when she saw a strange object 
on the sea which appeared like eight seals in a row. This was just 
about the time we saw it” 
“We were also informed that about the same time it was seen 
from the island of Higg, between Higg and the mainland about 
twenty miles to the south-west of the opening of Lochourn.” 
“We have not permission to mention the names in these two 
last stances.” 
“John Macrae” 
“David ‘T'wopeny”’ 
“P.S. The writers of the above account scarcely expect the pub- 
lic to believe in the existence of the creature which they saw. 
Rather than that, they look for the disbelief and ridicule to which 
the subject always gives rise, partly on account of the animal hav- 
ing been pronounced to be a snake, without any sufficient evidence, 
but principally because of the exaggerations and fables with which 
the whole subject is beset. Nevertheless they consider themselves 
bound to leave a record of what they saw, in order that natural- 
ists may receive it as a piece of evidence, or not, according to 
what they think it is worth. The animal will very probably turn 
up on these coasts again, and it will be always in that ,,dead 
season’, so convenient to editors of newspapers, for it is never seen 
but in the still warm days of summer or early autumn. There is 
a considerable probability that it has visited the same coasts be- 
fore. In the summer of 1871 some large creature was seen for 
some time rushing about in Lochduich, but it did not show itself 
sufficiently for any one to ascertain what it was. Also some years 
back a well-known gentleman of the west coast, now living, was 
