AUGUST, 1 88 1. 47 



for man to unravel than he is ahvays willing to admit ? 

 Here we have been rowing up and down the loch at all 

 hours, and yet even at an hour when we were hurrying 

 homeward to bed, and the sun had crept downward in 

 beauty behind the Kingairloch hills, throwing the black 

 firs of the wooded Appin knolls into beautiful relief on a 

 field of silver, the rooks were still sitting silent, and 

 almost motionless, on the same bit of foreshore and 

 gravel beach. Day after day this has been the case, with 

 a regardlessness of strangers, and apparent quiet self- 

 absorption, that is remarkable. Not a dozen or a score 

 of rooks ! but when they rise the air is black with a cloud 

 of wings, and one would say that all the rooks of 

 Benderloch were thus assembled on the Appin beach. 

 So far as we could observe, and they permitted the closest 

 scrutiny, they were not feeding at all, scarcely moving at 

 all, and most notably silent, for their vociferous race. If 

 a rook Parliament, there was no Coercion Bill before 

 them ; and if religious, thay must belong to the Society 

 of Friends ; but really what brings them together daily to 

 the same spot is beyond our ken. 



A very large proportion of jackdaws accompany the 

 rooks whenever they are seen flying overhead ; and, 

 however silent the rooks may be, their smaller friends 

 are sufficiently loud-voiced. But in these silent assemblies 

 we did not see or hear any of the jackdaw race. 



The Lapwings are already banded together, and back 

 from the moors like the golden plover, and no doubt 

 they will soon be on the move to the south. The oyster 

 catchers are also back in a great, bright, band, with their 

 biack and white plumage flashing in the sunlight last eve 

 ere the sun went down. The shores have been dull 

 enough since the departure of these birds. 



