60 NETHER LOCHABER. 



the turf as tenderly as if he were laying babies asleep in their 

 cradles. " There now, sir," he remarked, as he finished his colonis- 

 ing, "they will breed fast, and soon be plentiful enough hereabouts, 

 and they will destroy the common earthworm till not one can be 

 found." So that you see we had an interesting lesson on bait 

 angling and the natural history of earthworms very unexpectedly 

 from a very unexpected quarter. We still watch with interest if 

 the assertion turns out to be true, that the brindled worm ex- 

 terminates the common earthworm, notwithstanding their close 

 relationship. Such a thing we know is quite possible, a notable 

 case in point being the extermination of the old well-known black 

 rat by the more modern coloniser, the brown. 



The amount of viva voce information that one can pick up, not 

 by going actually to look for it, but in the most casual and 

 incidental manner, from all sorts of people with whom one may be 

 brought in contact, is simply extraordinary. Some, to be sure, will 

 have nothing to tell ; they are as Dead Sea fruit, full of mere ashes, 

 that never had sap or substance for good to themselves or anybody 

 else. Others, again, may know much, but they are cautious and 

 reserved, and never venture beyond the most superficial and 

 commonplace chit-chat; but the great mass of people, if you 

 approach them courteously and frankly, will be found communica- 

 tive enough, and if you go deftly about it, you seldom work long 

 in such mines without bringing some ore to the surface. A day or 

 two ago, for instance, we were sitting on a rock by the roadside on 

 the opposite shore of Appin, having rowed ashore from our fishing 

 ground to have a smoke and a drink of sparkling water from one of 

 the many rivulets that, like so many silver threads in some rich 

 embroidery, twist and twine with a glad music of their own adown 

 the green slopes of Benavere. An old man passing along the way, 

 with a bundle of rushes under his arm, saluted us with the quiet 

 and undemonstrative courtesy so characteristic of his class all over 



