The Scottish Naturalist. 215 



" Dr. Carrutiiers of the " Inverness Courier " has sent me your note. 



"You are at perfect liberty to make use of such parts of my contribu- 

 tions to the " Courier " as may best suit your intended publication, giving 

 my name as writer and authority in full. 



" If you will explain to me the nature of the work on which you are en- 

 gaged, and I find that I can help you in any other way, I shall be very 

 glad. (Signed) Alex. Stewart, Minister of the Parish of Ballachulish and 

 Ardgour — Feb., 1874," 



who is at the present moment, it may be added, editing, with 

 memoir and notes, a re-issue of " Logan's Scottish Gael." His 

 competency both to observe and report upon facts in Natural 

 History is unquestionable, and far superior to that of the 

 authors of not a few works on Animal Sagacity that I have had 

 occasion to peruse. 



In October, 1875, there appeared in the " Perthshire Constitu- 

 tional and Journal" newspaper, a couple of Papers entitled "The 

 Cats' Opera Man," being the biography of Samuel Bisset — once 

 a shoemaker in Perth, but who subsequently became known 

 throughout the three kingdoms as a trainer of" performing 

 animals : — who was in his way, indeed, one of the celebrities of 

 Perth — one never heard of, however, alongside of the nobodies 

 who, by reason of the butchery of their fellow-men, have 

 achieved what is called military " Fame," or who, by " strict 

 attention to business" and the " selection of the best style of 

 goods," have amassed wealth and attained civic eminence. 

 These articles — devoted to poor Bisset's memory — were con- 

 tributed by the writer of the series of Antiquarian papers for 

 which the " Perthshire Constitutional" has acquired local dis- 

 tinction — a series of sufficient value to have required their re- 

 publication in a more permanent form in at least 3 volumes — 

 one of which has just been issued as " The Perthshire 

 Antiquarian Miscellany," whose contents, however, cannot be 

 wholly "Antiquarian," seeing that it contains a paper on " The 

 Salmon of the Tay." The author of the said " Miscellany" — the 

 Biographer of worthy Bisset — is a residenter in Perth, Mr. Robert 

 Scott Fittis — known to the literary world less perhaps by his 

 " Illustrations of the History and Antiquities of Perthshire " than 

 by his " Gilderoy: a Scottish tradition,"* and other works. In 

 reply to certain inquiries as to Bisset's Biography, Mr. Fittis 

 favoured me with the following particulars : — 



* Published as one of the volumes of "Routledge's Railway Library :" 

 London, 1866. 



