inst wolves and
raiders both by land and sea, and especially by sea. Notwithstanding
agricultural operations, foundations of 145 brochs can still be traced
in Ness and 67 in Strathnavern and Sudrland, but they were not all in
use at the same time, and they are mostly on sites taken over later
on by the Norse,[5] because they were already cultivated and
agriculturally the best.

A well-known authority on such subjects, the late Dr. Munro, in his
_Prehistoric Scotland_ p. 389 writes of the brochs as follows:--"Some
four hundred might have been seen conspicuously dotting the more
fertile lands along the shores and straths of the counties of
Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, Inverness, Argyll, the islands of
Orkney, Shetland, Bute, and some of the Hebrides. Two are found
in Forfarshire, and one each in the counties of Perth, Stirling,
Midlothian, Selkirk and Berwick."

If one may venture to hazard a conjecture as to their date, they
probably came into general use in these parts of Caledonia as nearly
as possible contemporaneously with the date of the Roman occupation
of South Britain, which they outlasted for many centuries. But their
erection was not due to the fear of attack by the armies of Rome. For
their remains are found where the Romans never came, and where the
Romans came almost none are found. Their construction is more probably
to be ascribed to very early unrecorded maritime raids of pirates of
unknown race both on regions far north of the eastern coast protected
later by the Count of the Saxon shore, and on the northern and western
islands and coasts, where also many ruins of them survive.

In Cat dwelt the Pecht or Pict, the Brugaidh or farmer in his dun or
broch, erected always on or near well selected fertile land on the
seaboard, on the sides of straths, or on the shores of lochs, or
less frequently on islands near their shores and then approached by
causeways;[6] and the rest of the people lived in huts whose circular
foundations still remain, and are found in large numbers at much
higher elevations than the sites of any brochs. The brochs near the
sea-coast were often so placed as to communicate with each other for
long distances up the valleys, by signal by day, and beacon fire at
night, and so far as they are traceable, the positions of most of them
in Sutherland and Caithness are indicated on the map by circles.

Built invariably solely of stone and without mortar, in form the
brochs were circular, and