26 TOUR IN SUTHERLAND. CII. IT. 



Fisher," as the osprey is sometimes called in Gaelic. 

 At the nearest point of the road to the lake we un- 

 shipped the boat, and making traces out of rope, we 

 fastened the pony to it, leaving the under carriage 

 and wheels by the roadside ; we then managed to get 

 the boat to the water's edge, the pony scrambling, in 

 a manner practised only by mountain-bred ponies, 

 over bog and rock, dragging the boat after him, 

 while we did our utmost to keep it from injury, or 

 from getting stuck in the rough ground. 



I was delighted beyond exi)ression at seeing the 

 two osprey s, one of them on the nest and the other 

 soaring above the loch, uttering cries of alarm at 

 our approach. 



The nest was placed in a most curious situation. 

 About a hundi-ed and fifty yards from the shore there 

 rose from the deep water a solitary rock about ten 

 feet high, shaped like a broken sugar-loaf, or trun- 

 cated cone : on the summit of this was the nest — a 

 pile of sticks of very great depth, evidently the ac- 

 cumulation of many breeding seasons, as the osprey 

 returns, year after year, to the same nest. How 

 this heap of sticks withstood the winter gales without 

 being blown at once into the water, puzzled me. 

 In a crevice of the rock was a small tuft or two of 

 green, otherwise it was perfectly bare and steep. 



We launched our little bark, and were soon 



