16 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



family was apparently fast sinking under the baleful 

 effects of some unintelligible disease. As is often the 

 case under these circumstances, the auguries and 

 revelations of a seer or wise woman, and the existence 

 of one or two of which mysterious personages these 

 outlandish neighbourhoods are often proud to boast, 

 were gravely consulted by the desponding parents. 

 She at once decided that, so long as the malignant 

 influence was suffered to infest the premises, no bene- 

 ficial change could possibly be expected to ensue. The 

 poor little Phoca was accordingly carried some three 

 or four days' voyage out to sea, and was then con- 

 signed, with much malediction and disgrace, to the 

 unfostering strangeness of its native element. Some 

 forty-eight hours afterwards, and in the dead of night, 

 a low moaning sound * outside tbe cabin door, alter- 

 nating between a languid grunt and a more plaintive 

 bark, roused the terror-stricken inmates from their 

 sleep, and filled them with abject sensations of ghostly 

 misgiving and dread. On opening the casement the 

 rejected little favourite was seen, toilworn and weary, 

 bespeaking admittance in its child-like accents to its 

 usual shelter and repose. Again the now-dreaded 



* The cry of the seal is wild and mournful, difficult to 

 describe, but something between the mew of a cat and the 

 howl of a dog; a most unpleasant sound it is, though it 

 sometimes harmonizes sufficiently well with the wild scenery 

 surrounding them. St. Johns Tour in Sutherland. 



