SUMMER RAMBLES ON THE SURENDAL FJELDS. 115 
(his mate doubtless nesting somewhere hard by), and 
a pair of red-throated divers, which went away very 
wild and had no appearance of breeding. The nearer 
bank of the loch was steep and craggy, in places shaggy 
with rough scrub and hanging birch-woods, alternating 
with naked screes which descended abruptly into deep 
water—an awkward place to traverse with a rod. The 
other shore was squashy bog, very shallow at the edge, 
but deepening all at once a few yards out, as was 
ascertained on commencing to fish. No sooner was a 
lake-fly of approved size and pattern placed beyond the 
shallows than it was seized by a trout, which ascended 
vertically from behind this submerged bank, whose 
shelter he had left for ever. In a short time I had 
extracted forty-two, which filled my basket. It was 
curious that, though only small (just three to the 
pound) these fastidious fish refused to look at ordinary 
trout-flies, and insisted on having full-sized sea-trout 
flies, and these, too, of strictly modest and unassuming 
hues. 
All round this lonely tarn there resounded the 
spring-note of the whimbrel—a note which at first 
rather resembles that of the curlew, but modulates into 
a delicious liquid ripple, an intonation of, though quite 
distinct from, the bird’s autumnal note. On our even¬ 
ing walk homeward we spent some time searching for 
a nest of these birds, a pair of which were breeding on 
a stretch of very wet, miry moorland, studded with 
dry moss-hummocks. The solicitude of the old birds 
was extraordinary ; they hovered and screamed within 
five yards, and frequently pitched down upon the 
heather within reach of the rod. At other times they 
