350 NETHER LOCH ABE R. 



satire, that they can roast a sirloin if they only had beef, and 

 prepare " ten different dishes from nettle-tops." 



We had occasion to be up and about very early this morning, 

 not, however, for the purpose of washing our face in May dew, 

 although the morning was very beautiful, and the dew lay plentiful 

 enough and pearl-like on grass and birchen bough, but in order 

 to go on what some may think an even sillier errand, to wit, a 

 birds'-nesting. Por this sort of thing the earlier the hour the 

 better at this season, and as we mounted the coppiced slopes which 

 we proposed searching, the sun was beginning to gUd the loftiest 

 peaks of Glencoe with purple and amber and gold, and aU the 

 cocks in the hamlet, as if at a preconcerted signal, were cheerily 

 greeting the rising god, or if their thoughts were more mundane 

 and prosaic, as perhaps they were, you may interpret the crowing of 

 each individual chanticleer as some one else did before you in 

 some such lines as these — 



" The cook rose in the morning ; 

 He called his favourite hen, 

 With a oockle-do-doo, and a how-d'ye-do, 

 And how-d'ye-do again. " 



In the economy of birds, the most important labours are those of 

 nest-building and incubation ; and owing to the wintriness of the 

 spring, we were quite prepared this morning to find matters in 

 a decidedly backward state throughout the length and breadth 

 of bird-land, wherever we might wander. We were not, however, 

 prepared to find things in anything like the sad plight in which we 

 actually found them ; for in no district of the remotest Highlands, 

 we venture to say, are the agricultural labours proper to man 

 at this season so backward as are their own proper labours tliis year 

 amongst our native wild-birds. Usually at this date nine-tenths of 

 our birds have already completed the labours of nidification, and 

 with some species even incubation is far advanced, if not actually 



