3 oo LOCH CRERAN. 



is procurable, although no doubt the most of them are 

 readily reconciled to the inevitable. 



MAY, 1883. 



Our pen naturally indites the familiar name, although 

 at present at a considerable distance from the familiar 

 scenery. London beds are gay with many-coloured 

 tulips, and the orchards of Merry England are rich with 

 their heavy show of blossom ; and yet on the whole the 

 vegetation of Kent and Middlesex or Hereford and 

 Gloucester is not further forward than that of Benderloch 

 a fortnight ago. So we shrug our shoulders as we travel 

 on the gth of May through the richer counties of England 

 to find ourselves in one of the combs running from the 

 Cotswold, with a bitter chill in the air and a Scotch 

 mist, followed by an English drizzle, and succeeded by 

 a cosmopolitan rainfall, reminding us of the comparatively 

 balmy Western Highlands. 



We sit and look out on the land of flint chips, Roman 

 remains, and modern manufactures, and wonder if the 

 rest of those foxes have been captured in our isolated 

 homeland. Our friend's lambs have been disappearing 

 mysteriously, and three of reynard's cubs have paid the 

 penalty, while the "old folks from home" have been 

 waited for patiently. They have many foxes on the 

 Muckairn side, and perhaps a score have been slain there 

 in a year by one keeper, but with us they turn up rarely, 

 and receive due attention on their arrival. 



" Oh ! foxes. We have lots of them here in this hunt- 

 ing country," says our host. There was a cow in that 



