The fragrant air of the mountains made the spirit rebound, and a slight touch of adventure gave zest to the whole. There was just sufficient light when we neared the islet to distinguish the two eagles winging their way to the mainland. Both lit down near the shore, and eyed our proceedings with an indifferent bearing. It was plain enough the nest had been harried. With discomfited mien, the forester ascended the tree only to confirm what we felt sure of before. "I ken wha has served us this trick," says Peter, setting his telescope for a last look at our quarry on the shore. "He has swam in at nicht, the scoondrel, and ta'en the eggs or young for fear o' his lambs. Mony a time he has swam Loch Rannoch in the nicht-time to see his lass." Upon inquiry, I found that this daring fellow had, night after night, braved the winds and waves of that stormy loch, re-enacting upon the solitudes of Rannoch the farsung feat of the Hellespont. It naturally struck me, was his barefooted Scotch lassie worthy of such a courtship? Does she, now a Highland dame, feel a secret pride when, sitting at her cottage door on a summer evening, she catches a glimpse of the serene surface of her native loch? Or when the winter storm has raised the white wave, and the snowdrift has sent her stalwart shepherd to the hill, does she breathe the silent prayer of a thankful heart to the Preserver of his days when their love was young? With such thoughts, I scarcely felt disappointment at the termination of my delicious night-walk, and, when I considered the many night-swims the shepherd had taken for it, felt glad that he had gained his prize, though he had lost me mine.

FRAGMENTS

MANY birds, especially those whose young ones run as soon as hatched, and, being thus dispersed, are more likely to be stumbled on, have various arts to arrest the attention of the chance wanderer, and decoy him from the brood. The lapwing is always most clamorous when you are furthest from the objects of her solicitude. So is the curlew; but should you approach them, the mother appears quite careless and unconcerned. Grouse and partridges flutter along the ground as if wounded and unable to fly, the latter uttering a most discordant scream. I have always thought these birds overdo their part, and that the lapwing is far superior to them in the art of misleading. The manœuvres of wild-ducks are similar to those of grouse, and they give notice to the ducklings when they are to dive by a loud quack, which is instantly obeyed. But the most finished actress I have seen was a mire-snipe, which fluttered up exactly as if the tip of its wing was broken. It flew in this disabled manner for about ten yards, when it fell as if exhausted,

and lay struggling on its side. I walked forward to seize it, muttering, "Well, if they haven't been poaching even now." Up it rose again, apparently with the greatest difficulty. But this time it was longer in doing the tumble-down part. Suspecting the trick, I followed to see how it would end. After enticing me some distance, it sprang up with its easy natural motion, and triumphantly twisted out of sight.

WHEN I lived at Lennie, my children set an old peahen, long solitary, with some bantam eggs. Five came out, and she proved so careful a stepmother as to rear them all. Some knowing observers declared that her long legs would walk them to death. Not so, for often she carried the whole five on her back; and if any one seemed weak or flagging, she invariably took it up for long together, as a good nurse would spare her sickly child. When they were old enough to roost, she decoyed them to the large boughs of some old tree, where they continued to rest even during the long cold nights of our northern winter. She tended them with great care after they were quite able to shift for themselves, always feeding them with any pieces of bread thrown to her. The little bantams showed equal attachment to their kind protectress ; and it was not till spring had far advanced that they left her to join the other poultry.

ALL creatures which feed upon flying insects, such as the swallow, the bat, &c., must follow and dart at their prey; and this circumstance gives an uncertain irregular cast to their own flight. There is no more curious example of these evolutions than the large greenish brown autumnal dragon-fly. This fierce dragon generally appears in July, and remains till the winter sets in. It has a beat of its own, which it plies most regularly, and its rapid darts are more like a bird of prey than an insect. You see one, perhaps, at a distance; he is close to you in an instant; at two more of his aërial bounds, he clears the adjacent plane-tree, teeming with insects; down the opposite side, round your head again, and all the while seizing gnats in his iron pincers like magic. I once caught in my hat one of these Gorgons, which gave me the opportunity from its being hampered with some load. To my surprise the booty was a middle-sized butterfly, firmly held in its forceps, and most unwillingly released. The head of the poor victim was nearly separated from its body. A most daring interference with the pastime of a quiet angler, staying at my house, was attempted by this insect last summer. He got hold of a trout in Cladich Burn, and, by too brisk a tug, jerked the baited hook out of its mouth, and over his shoulder. The dragon pounced down, seized the worm, and was actually whirled round his head, and nearly into the water, ere it relinquished its grasp.

These autumn

dragons are very numerous upon and about my moor on Loch-Awe-side, and no doubt do good service by

consuming so many gnats and midges. I have sometimes knocked one down with at least half-a-dozen in his ravenous maw. The strength of the wasp is even greater. After holding down and biting to death a fly nearly as big as himself, I have seen him fly away with his burden quite easily. The mason-wasp, also, after constructing its cylinder, will carry a caterpillar as large as itself, and deposit it above its egg, for food to the young grub when it emerges. As great a feat for an insect, as the carrying off an ox for a lion or a tiger.

SOME curious and interesting anecdotes of the nightingale and other soft-billed birds, during the nesting-time, were mentioned to me in conversation, and I begged the kind narrator to commit them to writing. His high standing is sufficient guarantee for their authenticity.

"We never had the nightingales so near the house as this year. It was about the middle of May when, from hearing them sing constantly, and one of them almost at the door, we were led to look about for their nest, and soon found it close upon the ground, in a Virginian raspberry bush, most skilfully fenced about by the canes. It was within a very few yards of the house-not more than ten. At first we were very cautious, and looked at it but seldom, and at a distance; but we soon found that we might be bolder, and, in fact, came to look at the bird as she was sitting, as near and as often as we