102 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



nevertheless a scanty sprinkling of these lovers of desolation 

 and contemners of the storm. 



In these regions the very valleys and thoroughfares are 

 lonesome and dreary ; and despite the crowd of summer 

 tourists that throng its banks, the otter fearlessly threads the 

 Falloch when travelling between Lochs Lomond and Dochart. 

 Sometimes, when watching the twilight flight of ducks, I 

 have been startled by his peculiarly modulated whistle in 

 the still bends of the river ; and an isolated rock close to 

 the highway is known as the " otter's inn," from his resting 

 a day there when changing his fishing-quarters. 



The numerous detached heaps of rock and stone scattered 

 along the hillsides, or grouped in fantastic outline on the 

 brow, are each occupied by a family of discreet badgers, whose 

 use-and-wont title is never disturbed, except when the moun- 

 tain-fox in spring takes forcible possession of the lower 

 cairns, where the abundant stock of blue hares affords her 

 voracious litter an unfailing supply. 



The great abundance of these blue hares frequently allures 

 a pair of golden eagles from the opposite hills of Corrynge. 

 They are the only ones of this district, and always choose 

 for their eyrie some one or other of the cliffs between Glen- 

 falloch and Balquhidder. The quietness and extent of the 

 hunting-ground have also emboldened the peregrine to build 

 yearly on the confines ; while a male hen-harrier constantly 

 swept over the heather during the last year of my lease. 



Such are the wild fauna prowling over the rugged frontier 

 of the Glenfalloch shootings, the background being filled up 

 by the ptarmigan hills. They are four in number Ben 

 Duchray, Ben Oss, Ben Loy, and Ben Achly. The two centre 

 ones are the " surest find," and generally have one or two 

 packs of white grouse every good breeding year. For these 

 few birds there is such an amount of rocky and (unless to 

 an experienced hillman) dangerous ground to be searched, that 

 even with trained ptarmigan dogs, and working them hard to 



