140 ACCIPITRES. 



able as the weather, but one which is never long severely 

 cold ; and a soil which is continually turned and ploughed by 

 rains and floods, but which is never for any length of time 

 deeply buried beneath thick snow. The consequence is, an 

 exuberance of vegetable action, which those who have not 

 personally seen it, would not expect in so northern and 

 remote a place. The green on the little swards is lovely ; the 

 verdure of the copses luxuriant ; and some of the old trees, 

 especially about Loch Maree, would do honour to the finest 

 park in the richest county of England. 



The law is, in fact, there demonstrated, that " where the 

 waters are busy, neither vegetables nor animals can remain 

 idle." Life is in constant bustle, the podded plants, the 

 mountain berries, the tops of the ever-growing mosses and 

 heaths, furnish food for innumerable birds; and the soil, 

 always moist, and never very cold or very warm, is the nur- 

 sery of slugs and worms. It has been observed, that where 

 there is the greatest production of these animals on the land, 

 there is a similar abundance of the corresponding ones in the 

 sea. The rain and floods wash the land ones by myriads 

 into the lakes and streams ; the rivers roll them onward to 

 the sea; and the tide casts them on the banks, or drops 

 them in the eddies, mingled with other myriads of its own 

 production. 



The consequences are, that the waters teem with fish, and 

 the land abounds with all manner of living creatures to 

 which so moist a climate is at all congenial. Salmon, trout, 

 herrings, cod, all the more valuable of the finny tenants of 

 the lake, the river, and the sea, abound, to a degree of wealth 

 which, if it were fully appreciated and won, would be very 

 great ; and if the people, who are every season leaving some 

 part of that country and going to Canada, because they 

 cannot dry oats in the rain, or ripen barley in the mist, would 

 go to their wild shores, catch fish, plant potatoes, and breed 



