2 3 2 LOCH C RE RAN. 



notwithstanding the barometer, and as we climb the hills 

 towards the distant wooded gullies our companion 

 protests against the exertion and the heat ! Yes ! positive 

 heat in October. And there is a butterfly busily 

 employed about mid-day on the hillside, and the black- 

 berries only blackening in places; while what are ripe 

 are either tasteless from the continuous soaking or else 

 from the recent touch of frost. All the same, it is a 

 summer day, and even the grasshoppers are chirruping 

 merrily, yet with a subdued mirth, as if their souls were 

 oppressed with the thought that they had no whisky to 

 counteract the continual soak. We have heard them 

 but seldom this season, and the exceptional rainfall must 

 have most seriously discomposed them. Not one have 

 we seen leap, so suppose that they are merely airing their 

 damp bed-clothes at the mouths of their holes, for we 

 watch for them in vain to-day. The sun has at length 

 come forth bravely, and that rocky, mossy corner of the 

 broken hill, with the patch of well-grown timber, looks 

 quite gay. Stop a bit, and glance along the surface, and 

 you will be surprised to find the sun glinting on bright 

 streaks of silver here and there amid the moss. What a 

 time they have been having ! a carnival of the mollusca ! 

 and why should they not have their turn ? The bank is 

 strewn with fungi of all shades, from the deepest, 

 deadliest crimson, to black, yellow, and white ; and over 

 and about every one of them, of whatever hue, the snails 

 have been crawling and feasting, leaving a slimy, silvery 

 film to tell the story of their morning's labours. They 

 seem to have no preference, but have attacked all alike, 

 and that bank alone is proof positive that no reliance 

 can be placed upon the snail tribe as prior tasters of the 

 banquet prepared for humanity. 



