312 Jin. IIARV1E-I3R0WX ON PRIEST ISLAND AND ITS BIRD LIFE. 
cliff-face, though we were assured that with the least swell it 
is both difficult and dangerous to attempt it. This, with the 
experience we have had of similar places is readily credited. 
In a dip on the face of the slope, in a grassy dry hollow, wc 
lunched. The view to the south was somewhat hazy and indistinct, 
being partly obscured by the successively rolling thunder-clouds. 
Looking south from our lunching spot, on the right appeared 
Greenstone Point the western horn of the crescent of Gruinard 
Bay, and beyond the headlands that guard the entrance to Loch 
Ewe, and dimly looming through haze, parts of the Long Island 
and the north-west portions of Skj^e. 
On our left, close at hand, the more southern of the Summer 
Isles, — if we include in the group. Bottle Island, Cairn Tor, 
and Cairn Deas— and beyond these, Bein Mohr Coigeach above 
Ullapool and the mountains of the Bhidorroch Deer Forest ; and 
nearer, the entrance to Big Loch Broom. (Greenstone Point and 
Statig Point on the south side of Little Loch Broom, are the 
natural guardians of Gruinard Bay, and ought to have been the 
salient points in the estuary line fixed by the Eoyal Commission, 
instead of where it now is, almost intersecting the fresh flow of the 
Eiver Gruinard itself at low water.) A grand background of 
mountains, beginning at Bein Mohr of Coigeach encircles the bays 
and arms of the sea. Amongst these are Bein Goleach (2082), 
Sahl Mohr, and Sahl Beg. The Two Bens Deraig, and the 
encircling rim of the Schallichs, Sgeire Eionn in the Strath na 
Schallich Deer Forest, and the mountains of the Fisherfleld Forest. 
After lunch we started to walk over the island. We visited 
seven fresh water lochs, saw the remains of old crofts, and a 
curious and perfect circle of stones, lying flat on their sides with 
the ends toward the centre, and sunk flush with the surface of the 
sward. I measured tlie size of the circle, but, curiously, I cannot 
find that I noted it down. The stones themselves, however, were 
each three feet long, and the diameter of the outer circle, as far as 
I can recollect, w.as nine feet, leaving the inner circle, formed by 
the other ends of the stones, as six feet. Not being myself an 
antiquarian, I was at a loss to know what these were, and fancied 
they were connected with ancient rites or superstitions. I made a 
rough sketch of the curious circle, and forwarded it afterwards 
to Dr. J. Anderson, the talented curator of the Collection of 
