These creatures were adept at climbing the few trees populating the sparsely forested high peaks of the island. Scoffer commented on what a comical sight they made ‘whilst clustered in groups amongst the foliage, they competed for the most luscious fruit and leaves’ They were named after the traditional wind instrument of the Hebridean island of Barra ; the twisted shape resembling the creature’s horn, its atonal drone similar to the noisy braying of the female of the species. There survives an example of the horn of the creature crafted into a handle of a tribal staff in the collection of the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford
