DIPLOMACY. 287 



from hour t6 hour — so rapid, so marked, and visibly perceptible 

 is the progress towards a large and lusty maturity of grass and 

 graiQ and every green herb of the field. Anything, indeed, to 

 equal the sturdy vigour and upward rush of vegetation during the 

 month of June last past we never did see before, and had it not 

 come immediately under our own observation, we could hardly have 

 believed it possible anywhere outside the tropics. The harvest 

 must necessarily be a late one, though not quite so late as it was at 

 one time feared must be the case. If we say that the season of 

 ingathering wiU be later than usual by ten days, or a fortnight 

 at the most, we are probably not far from the mark. But, late or 

 early, it is sure to be an exceedingly abundant harvest, there being 

 at present all over the West Highlands every promise of very 

 heavy returns, the heaviest, perhaps, that, under any circumstances 

 whatever, the land could safely bear, with the hope of an eventually 

 ftdly ripe and lusty maturity. 



Readers of our Nether Lochciber papers will in nowise be surprised 

 to hear that we have all our lifetime made it a point to cultivate the 

 confidence and friendly goodwill of keepers, foresters, and their 

 followers, wherever we chanced to meet with them ; nor would it 

 be proper to suppress our grateful acknowledgment of the fact that 

 to them we have been largely indebted in all our zoological studies 

 for a long quarter of a century. We look upon foresters and game- 

 keepers as at the head of their profession, what the French call 

 " princes of the game," and we have ever found them exceedingly 

 courteous and kind, highly intelligent almost without exception, 

 and not merely willing but well pleased to be examined, and cross- 

 examined when occasion calls, on anything and everything apper- 

 taining to, or at aU connected with, their office. With their 

 humbler brethren of the craft, too, we have long been thoroughly 

 en rapport ; these humbler brethren being the fox- hunters, mole- 

 catchers, and vermin- kUlers generally, by whatever name or designa- 



