CHAP. THIRTY-ONE THE BADGER 



partridge's nest with seventeen or eighteen eggs must 

 afford him a fine meal, particularly if he can surprise and 

 kill the hen-bird also; snails and woi'ms which he finds 

 above eround duringr his nocturnal rambles are likewise 

 included in his bill of fare. 



I was one summer evening walking home from fishing 

 in Loch Ness, and having occasion to fasten up some part 

 of my tackle, and also expecting to meet my keeper, I sat 

 down on the shore of the loch. I remained some time, en- 

 joying the lovely prospect: the perfectly clear and unruffled 

 loch laybefore me,reflecting the northern shore in its quiet 

 water. The opposite banks consisted, in some parts, of 

 bright green sward, sloping to the water's edge, and stud- 

 ded with some of the most beautiful birch-trees in Scot- 

 land; several of the trees spreading out like the oak, and 

 with their ragged and ancient-lookingbark resembling the 

 cork-tree of Spain — others drooping and weeping over the 

 edge of the water in the most lady-like and elegant manner. 

 Parts of the loch were edged in by old lichen-covered rocks; 

 while farther on a magnificent scaur of red stone rose per- 

 pendicularly from the water's edge to a very great height. 

 So clearly was every object on the opposite shore reflected 

 in the lake below, that it was difficult, nay impossible, to 

 distinguish where thewaterended and the land commenced 

 — the shadow from the reality. The sun was already set, 

 but its rays still illuminated the sky. It is said that from the 

 sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step; — and I was 

 just then startled from my reverie by a kind of grunt close 

 to me, and the apparition of a small waddling grey animal, 

 who was busily employed in hunting about the grass and 

 393 



