The large caterpillar which is the larva of the fox-moth, is very abundant on the heather in the shooting season.
The beasts of the earth next claim our attention. Except deer, hares, rabbits, and (on calm evenings) a few bats near woods or houses, few of these beasts come under the observation of the ordinary visitor to Gairloch. Some indeed of the beasts which are considered vermin, such as badgers, otters, marten-cats, and polecats, are now nearly extinct; great raids were made upon the two former some years ago for the sake of their heads and skins, which were and still are much used for sporans to wear with the kilt.
With respect to martens, Dr Mackenzie says:—"Martens have so fine a fur, that I remember a lady friend going into a London furrier's shop with a boa made of martens' skins, trapped by our gamekeeper, and which the furrier would insist was sable fur! I once shot a marten entangled in a net spread over a magnum bonum tree on the Flowerdale garden wall, the gardener being provoked by finding many plumstones on the top of the wall, and blaming jackdaws for the theft, while the marten was evidently the thief, his caggie on dissection being well packed with magnums!"
There are plenty of wild-cats in Gairloch, but the majority of them are domestic cats gone wild, and their offspring. Occasionally specimens of the true wild-cat are trapped. Here is another anecdote of Dr Mackenzie's; it tells of a wild-cat having its young in a singular place:—
"One morning the fox-hunter's dogs picked up a scent behind the Tigh Dige (Flowerdale) garden, on charming jungly Craig a chait (rock of the cat), that carried them away over the hills for about five miles to the side of Loch Tollie, where they lost scent opposite to a mite of an island, all covered with bushes, about a hundred yards from the shore. No more scent being found, the dog-master made up his mind it must be an old cunning fox, whose bedroom the island was. So he stripped and swam to the island, followed by his dogs; to his and probably their amazement, they were faced by a monster wild-cat, hardly yet dry from her swim, who had brought home to her six kittens a nice grouse for breakfast. They needed no more grouse after that interview. What a deal of thought pussy must have had ere she could make up her mind to constant swimming in Loch Tollie till her kittens could leave the island, as her only chance of saving them from the detested fox-hunter! Did she reason out the question, or was it mere instinct? Who can tell?"
The lover of the picturesque must admire the shaggy cattle of the breed now called "Highland," especially those of Mr O. H. Mackenzie of Inverewe, and of Dr Robertson of Achtercairn. The black-faced lambs are particularly bonnie when young, but visitors seldom come to Gairloch early enough to see them. Goats, mostly in a semi-wild state, are kept on some of the rocky sheep-farms; the idea is that they, being good climbers and fond of cropping the herbage in steep places, may safely consume the tender grass in spots where, if left uneaten by goats, it might tempt the "silly sheep" to destruction.
Some small horses and ponies are bred in Gairloch. A shaggy pony sometimes adds to the interest of the landscape, or diversifies the appearance of a shooting party.