X ORIGINAL PREFACE BY MR ROBERT GRAY. 



life in lona. T have pondered over this "book of sports "with an 

 intense although a melancholy interest, many of the drawings being 

 illustrative of incidents narrated in his letters, from which the present 

 volume has been compiled. In one of the scenes is depicted a life-like 

 flock of thirteen long-tailed ducks, and the author in his shooting punt 

 with his two dogs, " Dash " and " Doran," looking eagerly at the result 

 of a poking shot at the retreating birds ; in another, a vast colony of 

 Puffins at Lunga Island ; in a third, a Cormorant battue at Staffa ; and 

 in a fourth, a Peregrine Falcon exultingly clutching a Chough, while 



he himself is being shot at from below. 



R. G. 



EDINBURGH, 1875. 



Our deceased friend, the previous Editor, Mr Robert Gray, in 

 winding up the above preface, goes on to say that in prosecuting his 

 task he ever kept in view the difficulty, he might almost say impossi- 

 bility, of adding to the journals of so gifted a writer a word that 

 would enhance their originality or freshness. 



