A GOOD HEAD. 101 



it as much as any one that the tables had been so cleverly turned 

 upon him. Fables apart, however, the fact of the matter seems 

 to be simply this, that the humidity of the climate along our 

 western sea-board, and amongst the Hebrides, is in nowise inimical 

 to robust health or longevity. It is of course disagreeable enough 

 at times, and frequently a sad drawback on our agricultural pro- 

 sperity; but a minute examination of the vital statistics of the 

 Western Highlands and Islands would probably go far to show that 

 our superabundance of rain is rather favourable to health and long 

 life than otherwise. Ach bi'dh sin mar a chithear da, a beautiful 

 Gaelic phrase literally. But be that particular matter as it may 

 seem to it, what would most please us at this moment would be 

 a month or more of the good old-fashioned winters of our boyhood, 

 when everything was blanketed for weeks together in soft and 

 virgin snow, and the earth was at times so braced and bound with 

 frost that under the rapid tread and multitudinous rush of all the 

 village schoolboys at play, it rang again like a hollow globe of iron ! 

 It is now, alas, dribble and drip, and splash, slop, and slush from 

 year's end to year's end. 



We are indebted to our excellent friend Mr. Snowie, of Inverness, 

 for a very curious and valuable stag's head, admirably stuffed, 

 which reached us the other day by steamer. It is a splendid trophy, 

 a veritable Cabar-Feidh, which the Chief of the Mackenzies himself, 

 when the clan was at its proudest, might be glad to have to adorn 

 the entrance-hall of Brahan Castle. The antlers are of immense 

 girth and spread ; one, except for the brow tine, what is called a 

 cabar-slat ; the other with two tines, each of them almost big 

 enough for an antler of itself. We have seen many grand and 

 cuApus heads in our day, both cdbar-slats and multicornute ; but 

 this, which is properly neither the one nor the other, is, from its 

 size and peculiar style of antlers, a trophy to be singled out and 

 admired in a collection of the best heads of the kingdom. It faces 



