CHAPTEE XXIV. 



The Beauty of the West Highland Seaboard — Dr. Aiton of Dolphinton — Dr. Norman 

 Macleod — Specimen of Turtle-Dove {Columha Turtur) shot in Ardgour — The belief on 

 the Continent of its value as a Household Pet— Bechsteiu — Male Birds dropping Eggs in 

 confinement. 



If somewhat over-showery for the comfort of tourists, whose season 

 [June 1871] may now he said to have fairly commenced, the 

 weather with us on the west coast is at least all that the agricul- 

 turist and sheepowner could wish it to be, for pasture everywhere 

 is rich and abundant to a degree that has rarely been known even 

 here, while crops of all kinds never perhaps presented a healthier 

 or more luxuriant growth. The truth is that a certain amount of 

 rainfall, and that amount a large one, is absolutely necessary for 

 the weUbeing of our crops in the West Highlands, and the longer 

 we live the more do we feel the truth and force of the saying of a 

 shrewd old gentleman, at his own dinner table many years ago, to 

 the effect that he had always observed that the season in which 

 there was some difficulty in getting peats secured in good condition 

 was invariably the best for Lochaber and the neighbouring districts 

 from a pastoral and agricultural point of view. This is particu- 

 larly observable this year, for while you canpot as yet see a stack 

 of this season's peats anywhere, the country is clothed in richer, 

 greener verdure, the woods are leafier, and crops of every descrip- 

 tion more luxuriant than we can recollect to have been the case for 

 at least a dozen years past. If anybody wishes to see the "West 

 Highlands in all their magnificence and beauty, now is the season, 

 for, go where you may, turn whithersoever you will, wander forth 



