252 LOCH CRERAN. 



of the two closely contiguous nests have been a little too 

 " distant " to one another, and ended by having a battle- 

 royal among the tree-tops ; endeavouring to topple each 

 other's domiciles out of their secure positions, and 

 forcing the shivering wretches these last nights to wish 

 they had listened to Watts's hymns. How else to 

 account for the destruction of two nests so close together, 

 and safe from gales ? 



How differently did the two cows underneath behave 

 last year, and what a lesson might you not have taken 

 from your bucolic neighbours, you sillikins ! Did not 

 "Maggie" make her appearance at the gate at an 

 unreasonable hour, in an excited condition, butting at 

 the gate and bellowing plaintively, while refusing to be 

 driven away until aid was brought to her companion in 

 the ditch hard by, into which it had tumbled helplessly. 

 And did not the wise Maggie restrain her annoyance at 

 the stupidity of her comrade, and disgust at the snubbing 

 her first efforts met with, until her sympathy was no 

 longer required ; when she gave her liberated comrade a 

 proper butting, to relieve her mind and tail-off her ex- 

 hausted sympathies ! A most sympathetic, wise, and 

 considerate animal Maggie, when she might have so 

 quietly punished the other for all the stolen mouthfuls, 

 and had a quiet half-hour by herself among the titbits. 

 One almost fancies that such an incident could only 

 occur among well-fed animals, where there was plenty of 

 everything, and that it is a homologous growth to the 

 amazing sympathy for everyone suffering, be they knave 

 or fool, evinced by the well-fed comfortable classes in 

 England to-day. 



We have been getting up our Christmas pantomimes 

 in the neighbourhood, and the private view we obtained 



