AUGUST 189 



having borne testimony to the apparition of an animal 

 one evening lately in Loch Arkaig, the question pro- 

 pounded itself whether there may not exist, in that 

 profound abyss and others similar to it, living things 

 of which the nature cannot be precisely defined. 



Loch Arkaig lies in one of the loveliest solitudes of 

 Lochaber, an expanse of water some thirteen miles in 

 length, winding from east to west among the mountains 

 composing Lochiel Forest, and connected with Loch 

 Lochy by the brief and tumultuous torrent of the 

 Arkaig river. For several miles the steep, south shore, 

 shadowed by the crests of Beinn Bhan and Gulvain 

 (3224 feet), is dark with the native pinewood, one of 

 the few shreds remaining of the forests which once 

 covered ancient Alban from sea to sea. On the north 

 shore, where Glasbheinn (the Green Hill) and Beinn 

 Chraoibh (the Tree Hill) slope fair to the sun, a broad 

 belt of oak and hazel, planted by no human hands, 

 reflects its changing beauties in the lake. There is 

 no landscape in all the Highlands known to me not 

 even the much-frequented Trossachs which combines 

 more perfectly loveliness and grandeur, or displays 

 more lavishly the charm of mountain, waters, and 

 woodland. 



Well, in this loch is good store of trouts, both lively 

 fellows of one pound and two pounds to keep the fly- 

 tisher alert, and those overgrown specimens of their 

 race which were in old time dignified by specific rank 

 under the title of Salmo ferox. I have known one of 

 these taken on the minnow of the weight of twenty- 



