26 TOUR IN SUTHERLAND. CH. II. 



Usher," as the osprey is sometimes called in Gaelic. 

 At the nearest point of the road to the lake we un- 

 shipped the boat, and making traces out of rope, we 

 fastened the pony to it, leaving the under carriage 

 and wheels by the roadside ; we then managed to 

 get the boat to the water's edge, the pony scram- 

 bling, in a manner practised only by mountain-bred 

 ponies, over bog and rock, dragging the boat after 

 him, while we did our utmost to keep it from 

 injury, or from getting stuck in the rough ground. 



I was delighted beyond expression at seeing the 

 two ospreys, one of them on the nest and the other 

 soaring above the loch, uttering cries of alarm at 

 our approach. 



The nest was placed in a most curious situation. 

 About a hundred and fifty yards from the shore there 

 rose from the deep water a solitary rock about ten 

 feet high, shaped like a broken sugar-loaf or trun- 

 cated cone : on the summit of this was the nest — 

 a pile of sticks of very great depth, evidently the 

 accumulation of many breeding seasons, as the 

 osprey returns year after year to the same nest. 

 How this heap of sticks withstood the winter gales 

 without being blown at once into the water puzzled 

 me. In a crevice of the rock was a small tuft or two 

 of green, otherwise it was perfectly bare and steep. 



We launched our little bark and were soon 



