SUTHERLAND, CAITHNESS, AND WEST CROMARTY. 17 
Berriedale, Langwell, and Dunbeath Eivers. Grouse and deer 
inhabit these natural unreclaimed lands ; but there are few sheep, 
as compared with other sheep-grazing areas.^ 
The physical features of our Highland counties are often 
indicated by the appropriate Gaelic names, usually descriptive of 
mountains, lochs, rivers, headlands, vales, valleys, rocks, and 
islands. In Sutherlandshire, Scourie means the pointed rock ; 
Stoir, the high-peaked cliff; Meallmeadhonach, the middle or 
central hill ; Ben Chaoran, or Harran, a high ridge contiguous 
with Ben More, means the hill of the cloudberries ; Glasbhein, the 
grey (i.e. stony) hill. So also Loch Gorm means the blue loch ; 
Loch Griam, the loch of the sun ; Loch-an-Hard, the high- lying 
loch ; Loch Clashmore, the loch of the great hollow ; and so on. 
It has often seemed to us desirable that some good Gaelic scholar 
should work out all these interesting Gaelic names, and tabulate 
them for each county, with their correct meanings : and we believe 
that Mr. Mackay of Portnacon could largely contribute towards 
such a desideratum for Sutherland. In Caithness, in the same 
way, the distribution of Gaelic names of places is still con- 
siderable. It is shown in the north as far east as Eeay, and, 
extending southward, embraces all the great flowlands of the 
centre of the county, and reaches quite close to the coast in the 
extreme south-east of the county, where the mountains of Berrie- 
dale and the Ord, for the most part, retain their original Gaelic 
names. 
Scandinavian names are sparsely distributed amongst the Gaelic 
names west of Eeay, but largely increase, to the almost total 
exclusion of Gaelic names, to the east, occupying the whole of the 
great north-east peninsula, and the cultivated districts of the east 
coast, but becoming rarer in the extreme south-east. 
The names of mountains, and of most lochs, and the upper 
^ By the agricultural returns of 1884 there were 07,737 sheep of all ages in 
the county of Caithness, as compared with Shetland, 84,003 ; Fife, 88,529, and 
nineteen counties running from 114,292 (Stirling) to 709,471 (Inverness) and 
987,425 (Argyll). Vide Tram. Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, 
1884, pp. 332 et seq. 
B 
