JANUARY, 1882. 115 



driver, while the white-tipped waves are hurrying shore- 

 ward opposite the Poet's Nook. Terribly restless are 

 rooks and sea-birds,but we blame the actual more than 

 the prospective weather for their conduct, and pass on- 

 wards to our destination. 



We skirt the edge of a young plantation of evergreen 

 pines, in which scores of the trees have been " browned " 

 by the wind, almost as if burnt the continuous severity 

 even of the comparatively mild south-west gales having 

 at length affected their vitality, perhaps by shaking loose 

 their foothold in the peat. The snow is only in isolated 

 patches on Cruachan, as we skirt the Etive shore, and 

 the ever-increasing violence of the gale shows that the 

 rooks had good reason to be restless and anxious. We 

 are keeping a sharp look out for that finely-growing speci- 

 men of Pinus nobilis, to learn if it has stood the con- 

 tinuously severe weather, and happily the straight, grace- 

 ful, trim figure comes in sight by the old church, as dis- 

 tinctive as a redcoat in a crowd. We should like much 

 if this beautiful pine were to thrive generally in this 

 country, as it would add a most remarkable figure to the 

 landscape, and give a style to ordinary plantations that 

 many seem to lack. Here is the palace. We descend 

 to shake hands with " The Queen," the most noted figure, 

 as it is also the best known and most buxom presence, 

 in Benderloch. She details with quiet good-humour 

 how her hens were carried off by the terrible gale, and 

 shows the corner whence she escaped from her garden, 

 while we look with interest on the specimens of fowls 

 with reversed feathers, so rare now-a-days in Scotland. 

 They all look as if they had got such a blast in November 

 that their feathers had never recovered their normal 

 position. Yet they really belong to a curious and 

 interesting variety of the ordinary fowl. As we pluck 



