"THE MOOR AND THE LOCH" 235 



birches ; and the gentleman in the home-spun Norfolk 

 jacket who scowled at you over his bedroom candle is 

 trolling away for his life, as if your favourite fishing- 

 ground belonged to him. You feel inclined to for- 

 swear the land of your sires, and to seek a solitary 

 wigwam in some vast wilderness on the lonely banks 

 of the St. John River or the Saguenay. 



Sixty forty nay, twenty years ago the lochs and 

 tarns were the favourite resorts of migratory water- 

 fowl. The many admirers of St. John and his 

 " Sport in Moray " will remember his fascinating 

 pictures of the flight of the wild swans as they flew 

 trumpeting into Findhorn Bay ; of his circumventing 

 the flocks of wary grey geese who had set their 

 sentinels and settled down to feed among the ditches ; 

 of his expeditions in the frosts to the Loch of Spynie. 

 We chance to know little of the neighbourhood of 

 Elgin, or of Invererne, where that most genial of 

 sportsmen and naturalists had made his home for so 

 many years ; but we suspect that there, as everywhere 

 else, things have greatly changed for the worse since 

 his time. We lament the disappearance of the noble 

 birds of prey and the picturesque ground " vermin " 

 that come in so characteristically in the foreground of 

 Mr. Colquhoun's mountain landscapes. Organised 

 corps of keepers and gillies have been waging indis- 

 criminate war against eagles and peregrine falcons ; 

 extravagant rewards have been set upon their heads ; 

 fancy prices are offered for their eggs, till each daring 

 shepherd lad is tempted to risk his neck, scrambling 



