OKNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 199 



" The grey mist left the mountain side, 

 The torrent showed its glistening pride ; 

 Invisible in flecked sky 

 The lark sent down her revelry ; 

 The blackbird and the speckled thrush 

 Good morrow gave from brake and brush ; 

 In answer cooed the cushat dove 

 Her notes of peace, and rest, and love." 



Many salmon find their way into tins loch every 

 " spate ;" but though we spun the parr-tail assiduously 

 we did not succeed in moving one. We killed twenty- 

 one trout, but the day was too sultry to expect sport. 

 As I reclined upon the scorching seats of the boat I 

 noticed the common wild duck and the little grebe 

 breeding amongst the sedges, while the clefts and fissures 

 of the mountain sides were a very paradise for the 

 raven (Corvus corax), a pair of which ill-omened bird 

 I succeeded in obtaining, as well as that dapper 

 little itinerant whistler the common sandpiper (Totanus 

 hypoleucos). A precipitous and imposing craig jutting 

 from the bosom of Ben Ledi, and overshadowing the 

 darkest and deepest portion of the lake, has long been 

 tenanted by a pair of golden eagles (Falco chrysaetos), 

 and I gazed svith a species of rapture upon their well- 

 chosen and inaccessible eyrie, placed upon the very 

 summit of its " thunder-splintered pinnacle." 



It was on an occasion such as this that even my 

 fisherman's patience became exhausted, and being 



