LOCH CRERAX. 



fair size, yet the eye fails to observe them amid the half- 

 dry herbage. Why such a careful and shy bird as the 

 sandpiper should have been induced to select a location 

 within a yard of a frequented road, and place its nest 

 and eggs not under a tuft or overshadowed, but open and 

 exposed, seems unaccountable, except on the supposition 

 that it has been successful in a similar situation before. 

 "A bird has a nest every year in that fork!" says a 

 voice; "there are birds in it already this year;" so to 

 the bifurcated tree we turn, to find, where the two stems 

 part company, a deep cleft about four feet from the 

 ground. Peering in, we find the birds have flown, 

 leaving nothing behind but an addled egg ; so that once 

 again the shrewd selection of this location has success- 

 fully introduced another brood to a world that admires 

 and protects successful shrewdness. The egg looked 

 like that of the blue-tit, a bird smart enough for any- 

 thing, but the original colouring had not been improved 

 by the domestic arrangements of the little family. 



We hava had very hard frost of nights, and now 

 there is wailing in Benderloch, for although most 

 of cur fruits are now sufficiently advanced to resist 

 any such truculent assault in June, yet the potatoes have 

 caught it most assuredly. " Half the potato crop gone," 

 says one lugubriously, but we know this is most likely a 

 great exaggeration, as the wind was blowing smartly in 

 the mornings, and blew the frost off the leaves ere the sun 

 got strong. We understand that in sheltered quarters 

 the plants caught it, however, and a neighbour, who had 

 a number of shaws among his well-brairded grain, where 

 they were protected from the wind, found them all black, 

 while those in the drills close by escaped. 



Traversing the wood on a still day, we lately met quite 



