LETTER XVin. 121 



cloudless sky, pierce to the very bone and shrivel up and benumb 

 the flesh. It brought nothing very unusual, except some Wood- 

 cocks, Eedwings, Fieldfares, and Golden Plovers, which do not 

 frequent our island except in such cases of emergency ; and surely 

 now they seem very humbled and subdued ! The Golden Plovers 

 were in great number and excessively tame. On their first 

 arrival the flocks would allow themselves to be shot at more 

 than once before they would even fly off a short distance ; and 

 latterly, though more wary, yet I crawled within arm's length of 

 them. They are nearly all more or less mottled underneath with 

 black. 



I have to thank you and my Glasgow friends once more for 

 your obliging opinion of my communications, which is more than 

 they are entitled to, as they are simply the daily thoughts which 

 occupy my mind when wandering along the hill- side, or floating 

 in solitude upon the blue water. If at such times I had the 

 means of putting them immediately on paper, I am sure they 

 would be much fresher and better worth keeping. But while 

 dipping the feathering oar with one hand into the briny element, 

 I doubt the possibility of keeping the goose feather dipping with 

 the other hand into the inky fluid. This reminds me of a sapient 

 remark from a London tailor. Last summer I took some home- 

 woven tartan to be fashioned into habiliments by a Metropolitan 

 artist. " You observe this cloth," said I, " is entirely made by 

 the hand-looms of the common flshermen of lona." " Oh, indeed, 

 sir ! Ah, yes, I suppose they take their looms out with them in 

 their boats, along with them, to work while they are fishing." 



It will not be very long before the " season " commences again, 



