AUGUST, 1 88 1. 39 



We have often seen stray swallows skimming over the 

 seaware and nipping up an odd insect ; but quite the 

 swallow colony of the whole district to congregate on the 

 beach, and behave with the reckless disregard of appear- 

 ance of a "family at the coast," was an unusual occur- 

 rence. 



Our loch has been very destitute of life for some time, 

 and gulls more especially are not common with us. On 

 our way in by boat to our little bay, in the dusk this 

 evening, we started a very large flight of small gulls inter- 

 mingled with vociferous curlews, all settling again on the 

 little cairn-covered island near us. They must have been 

 driven in by an approaching gale, and the curlews, too, 

 seem to have already reached the coast for the winter, 

 after incubating among the moors during the summer. 



We so frequently hear of the remarkable force of 

 instinct, and how it triumphs over habit and early train- 

 ing, that it is notable when we find a very marked 

 instance to the contrary, and discover a case where early 

 associations triumph completely over inherited peculiari- 

 ties. The young ducks that take instinctively to the 

 water, to the horror of their hen foster-mother, is within 

 the experience of every keeper of fowls ; but we have an 

 amusing duck that formed part of such a hen-incubated 

 brood, and, while its companions have all joined the 

 other ducks, and daily frequent the sea and the stream, 

 yet it has attached itself to our chickens, from whom it 

 is inseparable. We have in vain sought to drive it into 

 a sense of its wider field of labour, to show that it was 

 born to " conquer the flood ; " it remembers only the kin 

 of the foster-mother ! 



There is a class of fishes not well known even to collec- 

 tors, and seldom found in any quantity by those who are 



