SHORES OF THE CLYDE AND FIRTH. 
135 
until we arrive at what is called the West Grains, the highest 
pinnacles of these fearful rocks, which rise to about the 
same height as Tennant's stalk in Glasgow. Here the cliffs 
may be said to be literally alive with birds, including all 
the species of sea fowl that frequent the place — the kiti- 
wake and other gull tribes, the gannet or solen goose, 
cormorant, gillimot, puffin, razor bill, and the little stormy 
petrel or mother Carey's chicken. We are informed by our 
boatmen friends that the birds begin to come back between 
February and March ; and by the end of October, of all 
those vast family flocks, only a wandering gull is to be 
seen here and there. But what wonder ! for the high, bare, 
shelterless rocks are so exposed to the wintry blasts that 
no living thing could find rest upon them. From the same 
source we learn that a number of years ago the present 
possessor, the Marquis of Ailsa, imported into the island a 
number of badgers and racoons, and since then it is alleged 
that the birds, particularly on the Main Craigs, have greatly 
diminished in numbers. The badgers are said to be now 
extinct, but the racoons are still in existence, and being 
fearless crag-speelers, during the nesting season their well- 
known proclivity for eggs will have ample opportunity of 
being satiated, hence the alleged diminishing of the birds. 
Rounding the cindered path of the north foghorn, we 
speedily arrive again at our starting point. Looking up 
the precipitous breast of the ascending steep, a little beyond 
the keeper's house, we notice a footpath tracking up the 
rocks towards an old castle. What on earth the object of 
its founders was in planting the ancient keep in such an 
inaccessible spot is, to us, in those peaceful times, a source 
of wonderment. Like an eagle's eyry, half -hidden in the 
clouds, it suggests the idea of a prison rather than that of 
a fortress or a place of residence. 
