28 TOUR IN SUTHERLAND. CH. II. 



culating, probably, as we had done, that the ospreys 

 would not have been sitting on an empty nest. 



On returning to the inn at Scowrie, I found that 

 my fi-iend had been more profitably employed in 

 catching a dish of fine-looking though muddy tasted 

 trout, in a small rushy loch close to the inn. 



One of the Duke of Sutherland's foresters 

 brought in a very fine white-tailed eagle, which he 

 had shot the day before : unluckily the plumage 

 was quite destroyed in consequence of the keeper 

 having, to " make sure," discharged his gun at the 

 bird a second time, after it had fallen, in conse- 

 quence of which the head was nearly blown off. I 

 procured, however, some feathers for the large 

 salmon fly which we fish with in the Spey river, in 

 making which the eagle's feather is the principal 

 material employed. 



