326 NETHER LOCHABER. 



goldfinch in another cage beside him busily scolding him all the 

 time for having the impudence to sing so well, or sing at all, in 

 interruption of his own louder and clearer notes. Cage-birds 

 properly treated are a great amusement, and, if you pay them due 

 attention, evince in a very short time a degree of intelligence so 

 remarkable that you only wonder, philosophising craniologically, 

 how so much of it can find lodging-room within their little heads. 

 Mackenzie is commissioned to go to Norway and Sweden this 

 summer in search of a lot of crossbills, grossbeaks, and other birds, 

 for a wealthy gentleman in the south, who is a great bird-fancier. 

 Let him only once get to their habitat, and Mackenzie is just the 

 man to lay salt on the tail of any bird that flies. 



