52 PTARMIGANS. 



chaos of granite blocks. There was a sort of "air of 

 success about him," that seemed to say he had made a 

 capital hit ; and, in truth, his excitement appeared to be 

 excessive: judge then of his surprise and disappointment, 

 when the only answer he got was, " Ay, those are ptar- 

 migans ; you can have a day at them when you have 

 nothing better to do. They are not worth our notice at 

 present, guarda, e passa." 



They now turned up the hill to the south-east, and 

 proceeded till they came to an immense block of granite 

 which stood upon the sky line of the hill ; and then the 

 gillies sat down on the heather ; he with the dogs in the 

 leash, a little apart from the rest. 



" Is this the forest ? why, there is not a single tree or 

 bush within ten miles of us." 



" You are nearly right there, Harry ; it is a forest only 

 in the sense of the chase : wild as this immense tract is, 

 however, every rock, corrie, cairn, and mountain is distin- 

 guished by some particular name, 'nullum sine nomine 

 saxum ; ' and there are numerous subdivisions which indi- 

 cate every precise spot, so that the men appointed to bring 

 home the dead deer, being thus told where they lie, never 

 fail to find them. 



" And now what do you think of this wild region ? Do 

 you not almost feel as if you were wandering in a new 

 world? Here, every thing bears the original impress of 

 nature untouched by the hand of man since its creation. 

 That vast moor spread out below you ; this mass of huge 

 mountains heaving up their crests around you ; and those 

 peaks in the distance, faint almost as the sky itself, give 

 the appearance of an extent boundless and sublime as the 



