AN INTERESTING FACT. 143 



dropped an egg, the thing was scouted as ridiculous, and from Dan 

 to Beersheba, from London to John O'Groat's, the cry was that it 

 couldn't be, that it was impossible ; one writer going so far in 

 his scepticism as plainly to declare that " he would as soon believe 

 that a bull had given birth to a calf." Much was the chaffing that 

 we had to endure in connection with the subject, and our most in- 

 timate friends could hardly believe that we were serious in it at all. 

 And yet we were perfectly in earnest ; we had known the thing 

 happen repeatedly, and since then a very fine cock goldfinch of our 

 own, one of the best singers, too, we have ever heard, laid an egg 

 in his cage which is still in our possession, and several of our 

 correspondents having had their attention directed to the subject, 

 have assured themselves that, not only is the thing possible, but in 

 the case of the domestic cock at least, and of many cage-birds, of 

 rather common occurrence. It is a very odd and curious thing, no 

 doubt, and difficult of explanation, but there are thousands of 

 undisputed facts in natural history in the same category, the 

 existence of which is beyond all question, though the how, and 

 why, and wherefore is a mystery. 



From our window, as we write these lines, we can see quite a 

 fleet of herring boats sailing up Loch Linnhe on their return from 

 the fishing stations at Barra, Lochmaddy, and the Lewis a very 

 pretty sight not less than two hundred or more boats under full 

 sail, stretching in one long line from Corran Ferry to the Sound 

 of Mull, looking at this distance for all the world like the notes in 

 a line of complicated printed music. 



