From Fox's Earth 



men of the day. Tourists had not yet found out 

 Sutherland, nor naturalists. Both are common 

 now. It is the birds that are rare. Only one 

 sportsman-naturalist, who went, not as a sports- 

 man to kill grouse, but as a naturalist to be 

 among the wild life. 



St. John was a pioneer. His were fresh foot- 

 marks ; almost first prints in a virgin soil, like 

 those Robinson Crusoe saw in the sand. He was 

 a prince of pioneers. In its simplicity and detail, 

 his story recalls the pen of Defoe. Delightfully 

 unselfconscious is the manner of telling what he 

 met in the terra incognita. The freshness of the 

 style adds freshness to the scene. The charm 

 affected the curious, and may have led to much 

 that came after. Under such guidance, at the 

 distance of sixty years, the reader crosses a land 

 yet unblighted and teeming with wild life under 

 natural conditions. If judicious, he will be satis- 

 fied with this ; he will not care to go. He can 

 scarcely have both. The new Sutherland he can 

 acquire only by the loss of the old. 



Over these summer lakes the osprey reigned 

 on high. Multitudinous wild-fowl nested along 

 the shore. Red-necked phalaropes ran lightly 

 over the broad leaves of the water-lilies, or called 

 to each other from their hiding among the weeds. 

 These were among its subjects. The depths were 

 its dim hunting places, the trout its game. We 

 owe the knowledge of its reign in Sutherland, 



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