SHAUIST RUADHA. 



attack, and is engaged perhaps in a grand re- 

 connaissance of the barren stony parish over 

 which it wheels and cries. Shaun, venire a 

 terre, continues to whistle, and at length his 

 perseverance is rewarded by a detachment of 

 the birds floating down in narrowing circuits 

 responding to his call. Nearer and nearer the 

 doomed contingent approaches to where Shaun 

 and his watchful master are in readiness to re- 

 ceive them ; their comrades in the clouds sus- 

 pect that matters are not right, and begin to 

 clamour in a warning key to the rash division 

 that has parted from them. Bang ! bang ! 

 four down ; and a fifth winged who has just 

 fallen into yonder pool. 



Here the moorland is comparatively dry. It 

 is covered with withered ferns and broom, and 

 at the pressure of the foot yields a perfume of 

 new-mown hay and cinnamon. At times you 

 meet a bunch of some sort of berry, the name 

 of which would be more useful to poets than 

 the cherries they compare the lips of fair 

 women to, and the burning red contrasts finely 

 with the tints of the heather and the scattered 

 blocks of moss-crusted granite. Shaun ob- 



