HELMSDALE TO MEIKLE FERRY. 69 



their filagree home; and each bird's nest in 

 the county must have been rifled once on a time, 

 to furnish materials for egg lore. They are to 

 be found of every hue and size in those cases 

 the large balloon- shaped chocolate with black 

 spots of the guillemot, the white-marble ones of 

 the wild-goose, the round and pale-blue hiero- 

 glyphics of the curlew, the snow-white ellipses 

 of the rock-pigeon, and so gradually down in the 

 scale to the white with brown dots of the willow 

 and the still tinier products of the golden-crested 

 wren. 



Forp, the dog of Sutherland, which is supposed to 

 have run a match with the best of Ossian's, has a 

 stalwart namesake in the kennels (whose yards are 

 built on the slope) ; but though his stern is that of 

 a half-bred, Macdonald the keeper assures us that 

 he " can make a deer's bones crack again." Hector, 

 on the same authority, " always takes them behind" ; 

 and Fan, who has more of the bloodhound in her 

 features, has lived, like him, to prove that it was a 

 good day's work when their puppy lives were begged 

 at Meikle Ferry, and they arrived at Dunrobin in the 

 pockets of Macdonald's velveteen. The rifles, Ger- 

 man, Purdey, and Double Lancaster, which stand in 

 such tempting array, along with the deer-saddle and 

 all the other belongings of hill craft in the gun- 

 house, have not for ten seasons past given an account 

 of more than "23 st. 21bs. clean." This deer was 

 shot at Balblair Wood by Lord Delamere, and is 



