1G4 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



of few we have had here, really summer-like. Took two 

 rubbings in the churchyard. Home by the Lochy. Swallows 

 in greater numbers than I have seen before, skimming close, 

 close to the surface of the water, their wings seeming often 

 to touch it. A salmon rose to one ! Will there ever be a 

 take? or was this only a curious coincidence? — the salmon and 

 the swallow seeking at the same moment to capture the same 

 fly ! " In conversation with the people about, it was easy to 

 learn any evening whether the salmon fly-fishing had been 

 successful during the day. My compassion had gone out 

 towards those generally middle-aged wights, who were daily 

 to be seen, up to the waist in the water, drearily but per- 

 sistently casting the line from their long rods throughout 

 long hours, and never getting " a rise." And I had longed 

 to save them much trouble by finding for them a guide to 

 success, in observing the habits of the swallows. I am sure 

 it would be a great boon, both as regards patience and rheu- 

 matism, if we could formulate the matter thus : 



•* Hopeful your gentle art you ply 

 When swallows near the water fly ! " 



But, bringing together all the data available in both depart- 

 ments, I failed to find a rule. 



Goatsucker (Caprimulgus europmus). — From about the 

 middle to the end of July a goatsucker appeared almost 

 every night about ten o'clock in the neighbourhood of the 

 cottage. Like most of the birds in Lochaber, it seemed to 

 have no fear of man, passing so near you that it might have 

 been knocked down with a stick, or letting you approach it 

 in the late twilight to within a few feet. A favourite resting- 

 place was a bar nailed across the top of the wooden posts of 

 a garden gate, the highway intervening between it and the 

 cottage door, from which its mode of hunting could be 

 watched. Its habits in this respect are the same as those 

 of the garden warbler. Seated on its resting-place, it sud- 

 denly made a dart in one direction, and another — and in a 

 moment returned again to its perch, or, taking a longer 

 flight, came back after a few minutes' absence. Unlike the 

 bats, which frequented the same spot, it came abroad in all 



