216 A PTARMIGAN DAY. 



decent black clothes, splay feet cased in thin 

 Wellingtons, asked if I did not know Gregor 

 Macgregor. His voice was weak, his step totter- 

 ing and feeble how could I know him, poor 

 fellow ? He was as unlike the Gregor of the 

 mountains as a turkey buzzard to an eagle. 

 He had completely succumbed, body and mind. 

 There he was, stranded in the print -mill, like 

 a vessel wrecked among the breakers 



" Oh, how unlike her course at sea, 

 Or his free step on hill or lea ! " 



I have noticed that foxes are less addicted to 

 the higher cairns than badgers. The reason, no 

 doubt, is, that the vixen likes to be in the midst 

 of prey when rearing her litter. My sons and I, 

 however, have sometimes flushed the dog-fox on 

 the baldest mountain-tops. The sedate badger 

 never wanders very far from its home, and 

 indeed is unable, from its short thick legs and 

 ungainly form, to travel any distance for prey. 

 About the end of autumn their food of wasps 

 or beehives, slugs, beetles, &c., is very plentiful, 

 and is eked out by the carcasses of braxy sheep. 



