The Hebrides. J. M. Boyd

Shellfish

       Fish Farming

       20.Nature Conservation

       Biological Sites

       Coastal

       Uplands

       Woodland

       Inland Waters

       Peatland and Bogs

       Geological Sites

       Lewisian, Torridonian, Moine

       Mesozoic

       Tertiary

       Marine Conservation

       Nature Reserves

       Protected Species

       Picture Section

       Epilogue

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgements

       About the Publisher

Foreword

WINDSOR CASTLE

      It might be said that enthusiasm is the mother of creation. There is no doubt at all about the enthusiasm of the Boyd family for the Hebrides, and it shows in every line of this splendid book that they have created. Having sailed and cruised in Hebridean waters for many years and having acquired an interest in birds, I can quite understand the fascination of that very beautiful part of the world for those with a consuming passion for natural history.

      If I had not already been involved in conservation through the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), I would have been converted by the changes I have witnessed in the Hebrides over the last twenty years. Plastic flotsam and oil pollution on most of the beaches, the decline in seabird populations and the intensity of commercial fishing reflect what is happening almost everywhere in the world.

      I am sure that this book will become essential reading for all students of the Hebrides, and I believe that it will become a ‘bench mark’ for all those who are interested in the natural history of the islands in the future. It will provide an invaluable means of assessing any further degradation of the area, as well as making it possible to measure the success of any conservation efforts.

Editor’s Preface

      The Northern and Western Isles of Britain have long drawn the attention of naturalists by reason of their distinct landscapes and their exceptionally interesting communities of animals and plants. Added to this is the attraction of distant islands, with their own cultures and histories, and with climates subject to the severities of the North Atlantic ocean. The New Naturalist Series recognised this interest in the publication of Fraser Darling’s Natural History in the Highlands and Islands in 1947, a book which received acclaim from the wide audience of those generally or especially interested in the wildlife of Britain. More recently, the series has published The Natural History of Shetland by R. J. Berry and J. L. Johnston (1980) and The Natural History of Orkney by R. J. Berry (1985), both continuing the tradition of a broad approach to natural history combined with an expert background of the fauna, flora, environments and history of the islands. An outstanding need in the series has been an account of The Hebrides; the islands lying to the west of the mainland of Scotland, north of the Mull of Kintyre, including the great islands of Mull and Skye and the ‘Long Island’, from the Butt of Lewis to Barra Head of the Outer Hebrides. The diversity of the landscapes in these islands is vast, from the mountainous and fresh scenery of Skye to the ancient lake-filled plateaus of North Uist and the coastal machairs, all with their characteristic fauna and flora. Few know these islands and their natural history better than the authors of this new volume in the series. J. Morton Boyd and Ian L. Boyd both have long experience of the Hebridean islands. Morton Boyd has been intimately concerned with natural history and conservation in the Hebrides since he joined the Nature Conservancy in Scotland in 1957, continuing with the Nature Conservancy Council until recently. Ian Boyd is an authority on sea mammals, especially the Atlantic grey seal, that symbol of marine life in the Hebrides. At a time when issues of wildlife and its future are rightly being more actively considered than ever, the Editors welcome this volume on an area of such diverse and intrinsic natural history interest.

Preface

      A visit to Skye when I was six years of age made a deep impression in my mind—wild mountainous scenery, thatched houses, and seagulls over the stern of the paddle steamer Fusileer as she plied the narrow waters between Portree and Kyle of Lochalsh. Little did I know then what a large part the Hebrides were to play in my later life, nor how impressed Dr Samuel Johnson had also been by the same country some two centuries previously—

      This (the passage to Raasay) now is the Atlantick. If I should tell at a tea-table in London, that I have crossed the Atlantick in an open boat, how they’d shudder, and what a fool they’d think me to expose myself to such danger … This (the Hebrides) is truly the patriarchal life: this is what we came to find.

      It was not until 1948 that I returned to these islands, seeking a new outlook in life after my War Service. I found it in natural history, mountaineering, island exploration, and scholarship. The first three of these were nicely attuned to my natural instinct for an exciting and satisfying life. The last meant a great deal of hard work for me, but my enthusiasm was fired by two men of greater intellect than my own: they were my professor in zoology at Glasgow University, C. M. (later Sir Maurice) Yonge, leader of research on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and my mentor in nature conservation, F. (later Sir Frank) Fraser Darling, pioneer ecologist in the West Highands and Islands. Each in his way had successfully combined the outward-bound and intellectual elements of life which I have espoused for as long as I can remember.

      It could be said that this book has been forty years in the making. I would not have been convinced that I should attempt it had I not already collaborated with Fraser Darling in the revision of his Natural History in the Highlands and Islands (1947). That work, Number 6 in the New Naturalist Series, was highly popular among students, naturalists and lay readers with an appreciation of wild country, and an awareness of its effect upon people. However, it did receive criticism from academics, who saw the work as lacking in authority and accuracy. One eminent scientist wrote:

      Clearly a book like this is exceptionally difficult to write, and most of us would not have the courage to attempt it … (however) … we might well have been worse off with the opposite extreme, a prosy compendium of incredible dullness, richly documented with footnotes.

      I had used it as a student, and when I came to revise it I did so without destroying the flow