SYMPTOMS OF WINTER. 281 



tumbling sea inside the estuary, so as to render it unsafe to 

 expose any boat of heavy tonnage to its influence. Pattigo 

 seldom ventures from his anchorage, and when last he 

 ventured to pass a night at the pier, he ground away a 

 hawser against the stones, notwithstading every pains were 

 bestowed in renewing its service. The springs are usually 

 high ; and two nights since, the Lodge and paddocks were 

 completely insulated, and our communications with the 

 mainland carried on by ferriage. The river rises fearfully, 

 and the huge masses of turf left along the strand, prove 

 how violent the mountain torrents must be at this advanced 

 season. The sweet arid crystal stream is nowhere seen ; and 

 Scott's beautiful lines happily describe the turbid river that 

 has replaced it : 



" Late, gazing down the steepy linn 

 That hems our little garden in, 

 Low in its dark and narrow glen, 

 You scarce the rivulet might ken, 

 So thick the tangled greenwood grew, 

 So feebly trill'd the streamlet through : 

 Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen, 

 Through bush and briar no longer green, 

 An angry brook it sweeps the glade, 

 Brawls over rock and wild cascade." 



But other, and no less certain, tokens harbinger the wild 

 season that has arrived. Yesterday a six-months' puppy, 

 who crept after me across the adjoining paddocks, stopped 

 in a rushy field. Suspecting that he had a hare before him, 

 I passed on to push her from the form : I was mistaken 

 a wisp * of snipes, possibly thirty in number, sprang, and 

 scattering in all directions, pitched loosely over the ad- 

 joining bogs. To-day I saw a flock of barnacles ;f and the 



* Wisp, in sporting parlance, means a flock of snipes. 



f* The barnacle weighs about five pounds, and measures more than two 

 feet in length, and nearly four and a half in breadth. The bill, from the 

 tip to the corners of the mouth, is scarcely an inch and a half long, black, 

 and crossed with a pale reddish streak on each side ; a narrow black line 

 passes from the bill to the eyes, the irides of which are brown ; the head 

 is small, and as far as the crown, together with the cheeks and throat, 

 white ; the rest of the head and neck, to the breast and shoulders, is 

 black. The upper part of the plumage is prettily marbled or barred with 

 blue, gray, black, and white ; the feathers of the back are black, edged 

 with white, and those of the wing coverts and scapulars blue grey 



