JANUARY, 1882. 



some time since we mentioned a flight of gnats, and 

 small flies are not uncommon, so perhaps Mr. Leather 

 Wings, as the children call him, may actually find its 

 customary food. Indeed, a friend just informs me he 

 saw another bat " on another shore " in the gloaming, 

 and, what is more to the purpose, saw actually a trout 

 leaping in Loch Nell mill-dam yesterday ! What would 

 a trout leap at except at a fly, and if there are flies for 

 trout why not for our friend the bat ? At any rate, the 

 fact that a trout has been leaping at a fly; and a bat on 

 the hunt for gnats in the gloaming, and duckweed in 

 green splatches all over the ditches, points to a most 

 extraordinary condition of nature in January. Notwith- 

 standing the gloomy damp weather at the end of last 

 week, the clouds seemed to have broken at one point 

 over "The Craig," and upon this hill, so beautiful in 

 sunshine, the sun poured down a subdued wealth of light, 

 that showed it up with all the hues of early summer ; for 

 it is even now well clothed with grass and mosses, and 

 stealthily disports itself in all the borrowed livery of May. 

 On Monday the wind was still blowing smoothly, and a 

 cormorant perches on an uncovered rock in the water, 

 extending its wings as to make a cross, and allowing the 

 wind to blow steadily under its plumage. "It is facing 

 more east, and the wind will go round in that direction* 

 says a voice at our elbow," " for we say that the cormorant 

 will always face the way the wind is going to blow." 

 Very rarely do we note a cormorant in such close proxi- 

 mity, and we half expected the promised gale in conse- 

 quence ; but next day there was the same bird again, in 

 the same position, and facing still more east. Still 

 another day found the bird imitating the orthodox scare- 

 crow figure, and yet more to the east did it face ; and 



