250 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



An own sister to him was born the day he began his 

 victorious career ; to which, coming as his dam does of 

 Lord Ducie's Seagull tribe, we have given the name of 

 Kittiwake. There was one hovering along the shallows 

 of our river not long since ; beautiful bird from the 

 ocean that it is. If I believed in Home's mysterious 

 communication with the unseen, I might, perhaps, read 

 her visit as prophetic of the coming Seagull success. 

 " It is nought ; it is nought," said the buyer of that 

 young hero, when he had obtained him. Anyhow, I 

 am glad that the gentleman made a paying investment. 

 The animal was nearly slaughtered in London, and 

 only escaped quarantine through being conveyed on 

 to a farm half-in half-out of the proscribed district. 

 The jugglery that saved him I trust we may never need 

 again. 



November, 1869. 

 How this sharp, frosty air is bringing off the leaves ! 

 and already the pheasants have learned to wriggle 

 themselves into the close ivy foliage, for warmth sake I 

 presume, as, alas ! ere long they will assuredly take to 

 sitting too exposedly upon the bare oak boughs. How 

 the morning, water in the bath makes one involuntarily 

 whistle, having plunged in, as one takes blue pill, with- 

 out daring to reflect for fear of cowardice supervening. 

 But, the ordeal sustained, one is rewarded well in an 

 improved capacity to resist cold. There is resident, not 

 far from here, an old man who takes an early dip in the 

 river every morning, winter and summer alike, without 

 regard to the " weather permitting " clause of the more 

 soft-hearted fox-hunter. He declares that he enjoys 

 it, which one might scarcely conclude from his usual 



