278 SUMMER. 



Burns, again, in a less lively, but more accurately 

 grouped picture of rural sounds, has these lines, which 

 absolutely transport to the scene any one who has 

 been there before and occupied as he ought to be : 



" The howlet screamed frae the castle wa', 



The bittern frae the bogie, 

 The tod replied upon the hill : 



I trembled for my hogie." 



And of course the " from," in the case of the bittern, 

 no more meant that that bird, or any part of it, was in 

 the bog or quagmire, than the " from" in the other, 

 meant that the owl was in the wall of the ruined 

 fortalice, when, in fact, it hooted from the ivy with 

 which that wall was draperied, or the trees by which it 

 was shaded. 



But as all the insectivorous inhabitants of the wild r 

 and many of those that nip or browze the herbage, are 

 up before the sun, inasmuch as the ardour of the mid- 

 day beam sends both them and their prey to the shade, 

 a glimpse of the summer morn, in all its glory, is in- 

 compatible with a full examination of them ; and, 

 therefore, you leave them to " a future occasion," and 

 onward to the height. In this first visit of the sun to 

 his fairest children of the year, the place to be chosen 

 for the purpose is not the centre of a mountain ridge 

 the chine of the wilderness ; but some elevation near 

 the sea coast, the eastern coast, where, from a height 

 of about two thousand feet, one can look down upon 

 the chequered beauty of the land, and the wide expanse 

 of the ocean ; where the morning fog is found white 

 and fleecy in the valleys along the courses of the 



