PLEASANT PLACES 23 



Professor Owen, Sir Roderick Murchison, and many 

 other great men of the Victorian age are to be 

 found in its pages. 



Those friends who did not care for the strenuous 

 joys of the forest could angle in the river for salmon 

 or sea trout, or visit the numerous lochs among the 

 mountains and make good baskets. The yacht con- 

 veyed many a merry party among the lovely summer 

 islands in Loch Broom, or on more distant excursions 

 to Loch Maree, or some of the other beauty spots -on 

 the West Coast. It carried a beam trawl, which used 

 to bring up not only magnificent turbot and other sea 

 fish, but many rare objects among the "rubbish" to 

 delight the heart of a naturalist quaint long-legged 

 spider crabs with their clothing of sea-weed, strange 

 pennatulidae, the long sea rope (Funiculina quadran- 

 gularis), the rosy sea pen, and sea rush ; countless star- 

 fish of all colours and shapes, and other samples of the 

 scaly and shelly marvels which strew the bottom of 

 the sea. A sportsman's paradise indeed ! 



" Braemore ! what brush can paint ? what tongue express 

 The fullness of its perfect loveliness 2 

 O, ' would I were a bird ' to linger there, 

 A willing victim of the Fowler's snare." 



