222 Notes on Sport and Travel i 



keeping. If the naturalist wishes to study him, let 

 him go to the ' Shramstein ' in the Saxon Switzer- 

 land, and make the most of him. 



That curious fowl, the 'lair-igig, or knag,' has 

 also disappeared with the oaks into which she used 

 to dig her bill, — a strange cross between a wood- 

 pecker and a puffin ; if, indeed, she be not the latter, 

 who loves to breed in rabbit holes, and might have 

 made herself comfortable enough in a rotten oak- 

 tree. If not a puffin, goodness and Sir Robert only 

 knew what she was ; she is gone like the dinomis, 

 and must remain in abeyance 



' To the Platonic year, and wait her time, 

 And happy hour to be revived again ' 



by Professor Owen. 



As far as I can make them out, all the birds 

 named by Sir Robert, with the above-named ex- 

 ceptions, and scores of others, fly, fish, scream, 

 trumpet, and whistle in Sutherland and the border- 

 ing sea to this day. 



True it is, that if you have bad luck, you may 

 drive all round Sutherland without seeing anything 

 more rare than a chance grouse or an accidental 

 blackcock, just as you may do, barring the two 

 named, on a Devonshire or Derbyshire moor. But 

 wander through the wilds, and peer cautiously at 

 the lakes, and above all, paddle off the mouth of 

 the ' Little Ferry,' in the beginning of November, 

 when the sea is black with birds, and the air resonant 

 with the cry of Haroldus glacialis and his arctic 



