XIII. 



A SCOTTISH TROUT STREAM. 



HAT a delightful thing 

 it is to wander, as we 

 have often done, alike 

 in Perthshire and In- 

 verness, on Deeside 

 and Tweedside, and 

 in Rachan Valley, 

 about the hills that line Loch 

 Long, by the borders of Gare- 

 loch and Roseneath Hill, and 

 far up in the famed Glenesk, 

 and follow the course of a tiny 

 stream leaping down the hill side, 

 now heady and impetuous, now dropping into little 

 pools or basins, boulder-walled, all the waterside 

 waving with ferns and wild flowers, and bright with 

 mosses, not a nook but has its greenery, spray re- 

 freshed, hawthorns, the mossy birches, and firs and 

 mountain ashes and elders, hanging on the sides of 

 the little chasm, nodding to each other, their branches 

 in many places meeting overhead ; and everywhere 

 the songs of birds making chord with the sweet 

 tinklings and lullabies of that little thread of water ; 

 wild pigeons, mountain-pipits, and water-ousels com- 

 ing to the pools to drink. This last is truly a pretty 



