Yet some natives, as great hunters and, indeed, naturalists, as
their ancestors, remain ; and it may be that the wireless will tend to increase their numbers. Such men' consciously glory in their district, in their island ; but they are puzzled. They regret and cannot understand how it has come about that so many things that were once a source of wealth have lost value. Two of these are the horns and the skins of the red deer. Such raw materials have fallen much more in price than the primary products of which our economic prophets are always talking : wheat, rubber, jute and the elemental metals. In the War such common stuff as the sphagnum moss, with its marvellously absorbent qualities, acquired value. To-day, even the cutting of peat is a failing industry, in Scotland at any rate, if not in Ireland, where it has always helped to keep the peasantry alive, giving as invaluable a subsidiary industry to the Irish peasant as the poplar woods to the French peasant. You would think their beauty alone would ensure the popularity of the Western islands. I have been travelling among them with a companion who has had some traffic with the Isles of Greece. He continually saw likenesses that surprised him ; and preferred on the whole the glory that is Scotland to the glory that was Greece. It is difficult to believe that some of the outer islands should be so neglected by a nation that exults in travel. These are, of course, a paradise for the naturalist, and creatures that most of us have regarded as rare may be seen in mass. Let me make a catalogue. Outside the little island of Gigha the sea was alive. with eider duck, a beautiful bird to watch. The colours of the drake are as salient as those of the sheldrake and allow no likely inference that he is the mate of the dull brown bird that accompanies him. Rocks thereabouts were patrolled not only by shag (in great numbers) and cormorants, but by seals that lay lazily as if they enjoyed being watched.
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