136 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



under the thick canopy of flat branches and dead bracken. 

 Here it is said, indeed, there does actually dwell a harpy of 

 evil form, whose chosen home is this stretch of gloomy 

 wilderness, and some imaginative bard has turned, for the 

 benefit of wonder-loving southern tourists, a distich, whose 

 intention is better than its metre 



" If the fiend ye offend of the knock of Balmy le, 

 Your life shall you live but a very short while." 



Many a time I have hunted in the territories of this being ; 

 watched a sunny vale below from the summit of his chance- 

 piled castles ; lopped branches from his oldest trees ; lit fires 

 in his deepest caverns, and inquisitively penetrated his 

 densest tangles ! In fine weather, when the golden sunlight 

 is speckling the floor of pine needles with patches of shifting 

 colour, the tall foxgloves rocking in the gentle currents of 

 air sighing on the tree tops and loaded with the faint aroma 

 of sweet-scented resin, while the soft notes of the shy wood- 

 lark or ever active goldencrest have been the only sounds to 

 break the stillness, the pursuit has been one of endless 

 amusement. But it is another thing hunting a titular 

 family demon towards the close of a short winter day, when 

 every unseen rivulet chafes angrily in its bed loaded with 

 blood-red peat water, and the firs lash about their rough 

 arms, tossing them up to the cold rising wind, and creaking 

 above and below like the scantlings of a ship in a cross 

 sea. At such times the curlews, bound southwards, sweep 

 overhead with unearthly cries, and the mist comes down 

 deep and sombre, hanging about among the rocks whose 

 weird shapes are more than ever fantastic through its dim 

 folds. If you have ever listened in a shepherd's cot to wild 

 highland tales of superstition ; if you have ever had even a 

 suspicion of a belief in ghosts, this is the time that you will, 

 in spite of your best efforts to put such fancies behind you, 

 think of everything gruesome you can remember. 



Indeed, these forests of the Scotch highlands are not to 

 be " sneezed at" for that half of the year, when not one low- 



