OF SUTHERLAND AND CAITHNESS. 
35 
fronds of the great royal fern {Osmuncla regcdis). Other islets are 
lieather-clad, a few grassy, and all are sown or planted by Nature's 
own hand only. 
ITor is life absent here in the bright summer-time. The sweet 
plaintive song of the willow- warbler, the startling cry of the 
common sandpiper, the trill of the dunKn, the " Teoch-viugh " of 
the greenshank — from which this last species gets its Gaelic name 
—or the wail of the curlew, and the discontented chatter of the 
gulls, are ever constant to the ear. The heron builds her unshapely 
nest on birch-trees, only a few feet from the ground, and the 
hooded crow ilies silently on predatory quest intent, whilst close to 
shore, off some green island in the centre, swims a black-throated 
diver, occasionally uttering his hoarse and guttural greeting to his 
mate, as she sits on her two dark olive eggs, only a few feet from 
the water's edge. 
Principal amongst the lochs of Assynt and the west of Scotland 
for grandeur is Assynt ; for its beatity Beannoch, near Loch Inver ; 
and Loch Awe, near Inchnadamph, for quiet loveliness and loneli- 
ness ; Loch Cama, near Aultnagealgach, for its grand background 
of hill and mou^ntain, and its wood-clad islands ; and Loch Urigill, 
also near Aultnagealgach, for the bleakness of its more immediate 
surroundings, and of the more distant Cromalt Hills, compared 
with its own vividly-green contrasts and innumerable water-fowl. 
There are many others, too numerous to name, but we must 
not omit mention of Loch Shin, a desolate and dreary expanse, 
narrow and ditch-like, but rich in piscine treasure ; and Loch 
More, Loch Stack, Loch Merkland, and Loch Griam, all lovely 
in their own peculiarities of outline, foreground, and distance. 
High amongst the hills around Goberneasgach, in the Duke of 
Westminster's deer-forest, are some curious nooks and corners, and 
peculiar lakes, holding some strange varieties of trout. At Durness 
there are others, such as Loch Meadie, in the centre of a peat moor, 
giving birth to the Smoo Burn, which falls through the roof of the 
wondrous Smoo Cave, in the limestone of Durness; Loch Crassapuil, 
close to the Manse of Durness, with its bright clear sand, vivid 
green water, and silvery-sided trout most closely approaching 
