16 TOUR IN SUTHERLAND. CH. I. 



willing for him to do so. However, as lie seemed 

 quite confident in the steadiness of his own head 

 and footing, we prepared to perform our share of 

 the work. Having fastened the rope securely 

 round his body below his arms, we lowered him 

 gradually over the summit, immediately above the 

 nest of the buzzard. He was provided also with 

 two or three joints of a fishing-rod, and a kind of 

 tin soup-ladle (bearing in this country the quaint 

 name of a " kail-divider "), which was fixed into the 

 small end of his rod. The use of this was to enable 

 him to spoon the eggs out of the nest, in case it 

 was placed, as the nests of these birds often are,, 

 so far under a shelf of rock as to be inaccessible 

 without some such contrivance. Over he went 

 then without the smallest hesitation or nervous- 

 ness, notwithstanding the slippery state of the 

 whole rock and the violence of the wind. We 

 lowered yard by yard of the rope, till he looked 

 like a spider hanging at the end of its thread. He 

 then was quite lost to our view, having scrambled 

 under some projecting rocks to reach the nest. 

 After a few anxious moments he gave the agreed 

 upon signal for being drawn up, and I must say 

 that I was rejoiced when his head appeared again 

 safe above the edge of the cliff, holding in his 

 teeth his cap, in which he had deposited the eggs. 



