Vlll PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 



Buffon, when asked the secret of his success, 

 replied, " I have sat at my desk for fifty years ! " 

 Much, therefore, of his choicest information must 

 have been derived from hunters, all of whom ought 

 to be amateur naturalists. When we see the blun- 

 ders bequeathed from scribe to scribe, even in many 

 books of good authority, it gives great encouragement 

 to those whose amusements afford them the means 

 of noticing remote and peculiar creatures, to com- 

 municate to the scientific their own fresh and natural 

 remarks. In regard to the habits of fish especially, 

 no man is better qualified to give accurate information 

 than a finished angler ; for much of his superiority 

 must consist in having a more thorough knowledge 

 than his neighbour of all their wiles and ways. 



Perhaps a more favourable observatory of this 

 kind could scarcely be found than my present fasci- 

 nating home on the banks of Loch Awe. The crow 

 of the moorcock is heard from our windows, the bell 

 of the roebuck, in the adjacent hanging wood, sounds 

 close to our door ; a good eye and glass may 

 command the correis of Ben Cruachan ; infinite 

 varieties of wildfowl crowd our Loch in winter, 



