THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

I

MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS

FIRST SEKIES

Memories of the Months

FIRST SERIES
BY THE RIGHT HON.

SIR HERBERT MAXWELL

BART., M.P., F.R.S.

Horns non numero nisifelices

SECOND EDITION

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD

37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND
IQOI

PREFACE

How often one may hear people who enjoy command
of their own time complain of the dulness of life in
the country. Poets, children, lovers, and a few other
abnormal individuals, derive constant solace from the
seasons ; but modern life in England has been arranged
with studied indifference to them. Man — slowest
among vertebrate animals to attain maturity, yet
whose years are but a span compared with those of the
oak or lowly lichen — man, leaden-footed among beasts,
wingless among fowls — a poor climber — a bad swimmer
— has shown his discontent with Nature by devising
a scheme of civilisation to make him independent of
her infinite changefulness. Artificial illuminants have
rendered him indifferent to the radiance of rising and
setting suns; neither storm nor shine are allowed to
interrupt the monotony of counting-house, factory, or
mine ; while, strangest of all, fashion has decreed that
the fairest half of the year can only be spent in an
overgrown, smoky town, built chiefly on swampy
ground, lying along a muddy estuary.

738364

vi PREFACE

Nevertheless, even the competitive exactions of
business and social pleasure have their reaction. An
increasing number of people are turning with interest
to the eternal industry in Nature's workshop, willing
to listen to those who will talk about it. This is
a hopeful sign to those who believe that the social
health and physical standard of the nation depend in
large measure on affection for country life, and that
it would be an evil thing should field and flood cease
to afford attractions for active minds. It is the con-
viction that the surest relief to dulness in the country
may be found in diverting our attention from the
imperfections of our neighbours to the endless variety
of animated nature, and to the wealth of story associated
with almost every parish, which has induced me to
put together the following passages from a very slip-
shod note-book. Some parts of them have appeared
from time to time in various newspapers; any per-
manent merit they may be found to possess lies in
the fact that they were jotted down in presence of the
objects described. No head is constructed to carry
about an explanation of half the things noticed in
the course of a single morning's walk; but if notes
are made at the moment of what attracts the eye, be
it a landscape, a ruin, a battlefield, a living creature
or a flower, recourse may be had at home to the in-
formation abundantly stored in books, and the signi-

PREFACE rii

ficance of what seemed commonplace or trivial becomes
evident at once. Without attempting to become a
specialist himself, each man has at command the
accumulated fruits of the labours of specialists.
Historians, naturalists, botanists, geologists — all the
devoted harvesters of human knowledge — have laid
up store of unfailing remedies for ennui, and some
part of their secret, it is hoped, may be found in the
following pages.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. BIRD MIGRATION 1

II. THE POWER OF BIRDS TO ENDURE COLD ... 7

III. A LAKE SANCTUARY ....... 8

IV. THE CANADIAN POND- WEED . .... . 11

V. THE SHOVELLER . . . . . . 14

VI. THE SCAUP DUCK . . ... . . 15

VII. THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE 16

VIII. SPRING SALMON . . . ... . 18

IX. WINTER FLOWERS . . . . . . . 21

X. WEST COAST METEOROLOGY 23

XI. THE BOTTLE-TIT . . .'•.'. . . 26

XII. FEATHERED POLICE 28

XIII. REVIVAL OF PRIMITIVE FAUNA .... 29

XIV. ANGLO-SAXON MONTH NAMES 32

XV. THE RIVER OF^THOR . . . . . . 33

XVI. A WINTER DAY IN CAITHNESS ..... 35

XVII. RAVENING ROOKS . . . . . . . 37

XVIII. ROBERT DICK . . . . . . . . 40

XIX. SNOWED UP . . .'.•'•< . . . 42

XX. THE HIGHLANDS IN WINTER . . •. . . 45

XXI. THE FROZEN RIVER . . . . . . . 47

XXII. THE FOES OF SALMON . . . . . . 48

XXIII. THE SMELT . . . « . , . . 49

XXIV. A NORTH-COUNTRY HALL . . . . ^ :. . 52
XXV. WRECK AMONG ROOKS . . -.: . . . 57

CONTENTS

PAGE

XXVI. THE EFFECT OF FROST ON VEGETATION ... 58

XXVII. THE GEE EN WOODPECKER 60

xxvin. 'THE SEA-BLUB BIRD OF MARCH' .... 66

XXIX. THE HARDINESS OF SHEEP ... . . 67

XXX. CROSSBILLS 68

XXXI. THE CRANE ........ 70

XXXII. THE TORTOISESHELL BUTTERFLY f . . . . 72

XXXIII. THE CHOICE OF FOOD BY ANIMALS . , . . 73

XXXIV. VEGETABLE POISONS . . . « - . i . 77
XXXV. VEGETABLE MIMICRY . . • .. • :» • t , . 79

XXXVI. DO VIPERS SWALLOW THEIR YOUNG? .+ . . . . 81

XXXVII. THE DIVINING ROD . . . , . . . . 84

XXXVIII. ADDERS . . . ^ .... * . 87

XXXIX. SPRING FLOWERS . . . . . . . 88

XL. BARBAROUS PLANT NAMES ... . • » . 91

XLI. THE PRUDENT ASH , . . 98

XLII. WESTLAND MAY . . . .... 100

XLIII. A HAMPSHIRE TROUT STREAM . . „ . . 103

XLIV. PIKE AND BLACK BASS . . . > . . 105

XLV. OLD ENGLISH FLOWER NAMES . » . . . 110

XLVI. ROYAL OAK DAY * ... >•;.«. . . 118

XLVII. HARDKNOT CAMP . . . . • .«., . . 119

XLVIII. FULL SUMMER-TIDE . , . . * . . . 124

XLIX. SUMMER BIRDS . . .•• ,i -.'..•« . . 126

L. A WORD TO ANGLERS IN HOT WEATHER . . .130

LI. LOCH TROUT-FISHING . ' . » . . .131

LII. FISHING WITH MINNOW . . ... . . 135

LUI. SALMO FEROX 137

LIV. A MOORLAND TARN 141

LV. THOUGHTLESS CRUELTY . . . » . .144

LVI. AN OLD CHALK-PIT 145

LVII. RATS, MICE, AMD VOLES 147

LVIII. WHY CATTLE SHOULD BE KEPT IN HERDS . . 149

CONTENTS xi

PAGI

LIX. DOUGLAS . . . .... . . 151

LX. RIVER POLLUTION . . . . . . .156

LXI. COMPETITIVE ANGLERS 159

LXII. DRY-FLY FISHING . 161

LXIII. SUBAQUEOUS LIFE 162

LXIV. THE GRIBBLE 166

LXV. INTERNAL PARASITES 168

LXVI. AUTUMN FLOWERS . . . . . . . 170

LXVII. A BUCKINGHAMSHIRE BALLAD . . . . 173

LXVIII. INSECTS AND HARD WINTERS 176

LXIX. A BEAUTIFUL LONDON SHRUB 177

LXX. THE EXTINCTION OF WILD ANIMALS . . . 178

LXXI. IN A DEER FOREST 182

LXXII. STONECROPS . .187

LXXIII. BEES AND DONKEYS 189

LXX1V. CAWDOR CASTLE 189

LXXV. THE FINDHORN AND THE NAIRN .... 194

LXXVI. A BORDER TOWER 197

LXXVII. THE HALY WIEL 204

LXXVIII. THE OSPREY 207

LXXIX. THE RUTHWELL CROSS 209

LXXX. A PINE DISPLAY OF COLOUR 215

LXXXI. DOUNE CASTLE 216

LXXXII. LAPWINGS 222

LXXXIII. USEFUL BIRDS 224

LXXXIV. WHY NOT A FUR FARM ? 225

LXXXV. STOATS AND WEASELS 227

LXXXVI. A MEMORABLE GALE 228

LXXXVII. BLACK-GAME 230

LXXXVIII. CAPERCAILZIE AND PTARMIGAN .... 232

txxxix. A NOR'-WESTER 234

XC. ASSISTED VISION ....... 235

XCI. MISTLETOE . . . 241

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE LAST GOLDEN EAGLE OF THE MEBKICK . . Frontispiece

(See page 234.) From a drawing by Archibald Thorburn.

THE LAKE SANCTUARY . .-..'. . . To face page 8
From a photograph by Lady Maxwell

RABBIT-PROOF PLANTS. The Giant Lily, Rhododen-
dron, and Fern , , 76

THE HOME OF THE BLACK BASS . . . ' . * - ,, 106

From a painting by Sir Herbert Maxwell.

TROLLING FOR PIKE ,, 108

From a paintvng by J. PoUard.

IN GLENTROOL . . ' . . . , ,, 152

From a photograph by Mr. Hugh M'Matter.

FROM AN UNPOLLUTED RIVER. Bull trout (Sdlmo

eriox) caught in the lay, July 1900, weight 40 Ibs. , , 156

January

IT would be scarcely possible for any month to present
such a violent contrast with itself in different years as
we have witnessed between January 1895 and Bird-
January 1896. It will be long before the Migration
Arctic cold of the former will fail to be traced in its
effects on trees, plants, and even animals; and its
influence on the range of annual bird-migration was
very well marked in the case of some species.

This periodic movement of bird-life, its motive and
degree, has been the subject of close attention of late
years. A committee of the British Association supplies
forms to be filled up by the keepers of lighthouses all
round our coasts, on which returns are made, showing
at what dates and in what numbers the different
species pass to and from their breeding - grounds.
From the mass of information thus accumulated, some
new and unforeseen conclusions have been come to.
The old rigid division of British birds into migratory
and resident species has been shown to be untenable,
for it has been proved that nearly all birds change their
quarters according to the season ; and perhaps the only
one which can be said to be strictly and constantly

2 BIRD-MIGRATION

resident is the house-sparrow. Even the partridge,
hitherto looked on as the most confirmed stay-at-home,
has been detected making a passing call in Heligo-
land, as Herr Gatke assures us in his remarkable record
of fifty years' observation.1

Bird movement is one of the most venerable of
mysteries. From the earliest times birds were looked
on as messengers between heaven and earth, between
invisible and visible beings: the time, the mode, the
direction of their flight, were interpreted to indicate
the future course of events affecting nations as well as
individuals; but we have grown so knowing that,
although ' augury ' and ' auspice ' are still words of
honest repute in our language, few who use them
connect them with avis, a bird, whence they are
derived.

But no sooner has mankind learnt to blush for the
folly of his ancestors in connecting the flight of birds
with coming events, than a new significance begins to
dawn, and the phenomena of migration are found
shedding light on the remote past of the globe. Ex-
cluding grouse, partridges, pheasants, the cock-sparrow
aforesaid, and a few — a very few others, the rest of the
species in the British list, numbering less than four
hundred all told, are known now to occupy different
latitudes in summer and in winter. Even blackbirds
and thrushes, robins and wrens, commonly regarded as
part of the permanent furniture of an English garden,

i Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory. By Herr Gatke.
Edinburgh : D. Douglas, 1895.

JANUARY 3

are almost as regular migrants as the swallows, cuckoos,
and woodcocks, and have been proved to stream across
the sea in vast numbers in spring and autumn, though
probably a few individuals remain behind. It is quite
true that many kinds of bird may be seen in certain
parts of the British Isles in every month in the year.
Take curlews, golden plover, and lapwing, for instance.
It would be a mistake to suppose that the individuals
of these species haunting our moors in July form any
part of the flocks frequenting the estuaries in December
The plover seen in England in January were bred in
latitudes far north of ours ; some of them, no doubt, in
Sutherland and Caithness, where no lapwings remain
in winter ; those that were bred on the Northumberland
moors last spring are disporting themselves just now
in Southern Europe, Africa, and Asia. England happens
to be situated just where the two bodies of migrants,
the northern-bred birds and the southern, overlap;
consequently, these species are never without represen-
tation on our shores.

And what is the suggestion which has begun to
glimmer on observers of these phenomena ? A very
startling one, in truth. The fact, now pretty well
established, that every bird known in our islands breeds
at the northern limit of its annual migration, taken in
connection with the invincible habit of birds to return
to their birthplaces for nesting,1 seems to point to the

1 A good instance of this conservative instinct has been given by
Professor Newton, as shown by a pair of stone curlews, a species
which haunts the open downs and nests in the barest places. This
pair had chosen a barren rabbit warren to rear their young. The

4 BIRD-MIGRATION

Arctic Circle as the original cradle of life. From the
character of the fossil flora of Franz Josef Land and
Spitzbergen, it may be inferred that the climate in
these high latitudes was once tropical. Suppose the
earth, once a mass of molten mineral too fervid to
sustain organic life, gradually cooling down, it would
be at the poles where the temperature would first
become endurable by living creatures. Through long
seons the cooling process went on, till, at last, very few
forms of life could endure the winter cold in a region
where once tree - ferns towered and giant mosses
steamed. Winged creatures were driven forth, following
the organisms on which they depend for food ; yet to
this day the birds, drawn by a hereditary impulse, press
as far as possible northwards, towards the land of their
origin, to rear their young, bearing witness that in
Polar, not in Equatorial regions, lies the source of
animated nature.

To understand the full force of this teaching, one
must take extreme instances of migration, such as the
knot and the curlew-sandpiper afford. These little
birds pass so far to the north to breed that it is
doubtful if any human eye has ever witnessed their
domestic arrangements. More than sixty years ago,
indeed, the knot was found in company with its newly
hatched young on the Parry Islands, Melville Pen-
insula, and Grinnel Land; and later, General Greely

proprietor killed down the rabbits and planted up the warren, yet
still these stone curlews and their descendants continued to resort
to the place year after year, and reared their young in the unfamiliar
environment of dense woodland.

JANUARY 5

took from the ovary of a knot shot in Discovery Bay
'a completely formed hard-shelled egg ready to be
laid.' Nevertheless, no authentic specimen of a knot's
egg is known to exist in any collection. Those who
know the stringent nature of an oologist's quest will
best understand the significance of that fact. Of the
curlew-sandpiper's breeding-ground absolutely nothing
is known.

Now consider how the knot spends its existence.
Leaving the Polar lands on the approach of winter,
vast multitudes of this little bird, scarcely bigger than
a common snipe, pass southward through Europe,
Asia, and America, lingering a while on our shores, as
well as elsewhere in the temperate zone, then moving
on and on, over such prodigious space that, before
they turn northward again on the approach of spring,
many of them have penetrated to Surinam, Brazil,
South Africa, China, and even to Queensland and New
Zealand. Not the least marvellous feature in this
annual journey is that it is not the old birds that lead
the way, but the earliest nights to arrive on our shores
in autumn are composed entirely of young birds on
their first trip.

Herr Gatke has noticed something of the same kind
in regard to the migration of starlings. These are the
first birds to make their appearance in Heligoland at
the beginning of the southward movement, as early
as the last week in June; but the earliest flights
consist entirely of young starlings of the same season.
The next travellers to put in an appearance are old

BIRD-MIGRATION

cuckoos, which, having no domestic cares, are free to
leave as soon as the stock of caterpillars shows signs
of failing.

Though the increasing cold of the Polar regions has
driven birds farther and farther south, temperature
probably is but the secondary cause of the migratory
movement; the immediate one is the effect of cold
upon the food-supply. Swallows cannot exist with-
out flies, nor hard-billed birds without seed. Flies
are much more sensitive to cold than the birds that
prey on them; hence when the chill of English
autumns checks the hatch of flies, swallows must
move to regions where they find a fresh supply. When
snow buries the lowly vegetation of Scandinavia,
buntings must betake themselves to Scottish shores,
where, on rushy moors and in stackyards, they may
make sure of subsistence. Cuckoos depend on cater-
pillars, and nightjars on moths and cockchafers; so
these birds come to us late, and depart betimes; but
even so they experience a wide range of temperature.
The cuckoo haunting the gorse bushes on the sunny
links of Nairn enjoys a much more genial climate than
his kinsman half-way up the side of Ben Nevis, though
both are in nearly the same latitude. Swallows, too,
are patient of a very low temperature, so long as they
have a full larder. The autumn swarms of bluebottles
which gather on the sunny walls of houses in frosty
weather, sometimes tempt swallows to linger so long,
that in the end a failing food-supply leaves them
without strength to undertake their southward flight.

JANUARY 7

This has been the case to an unusual degree in the
autumns of 1894, 1895, and 1896. In 1894 Mr. Stanley
Morris counted, in the neighbourhood of Bognor,
Chichester, and Fishbourne, one hundred and thirty-
eight swallows and martins during November, and
twelve swallows and nine house-martins during Decem-
ber. That was, indeed, an unusually mild autumn —
the preface to the great frost — but in the last week
of October 1895, Tweedside was sheeted with snow,
and a bitter nor'easter howled for more than a week.
Yet at the beginning of November there might have
been seen the uncommon sight of swallows hawking
daily over the snow in pursuit of bluebottles. All
these birds must have perished in the end.

II

The fortitude of birds in resisting cold so long as
they do not run short of food is very remarkable. On

one of the early days of what afterwards

•> -i The power

proved to be the memorable frost of 1895, of Birds to
I watched some wildfowl on a half-frozen endure cold
lake in Scotland. It was a day to congeal human
marrow ; it was freezing hard under an iron sky, and
a blinding blizzard flew before a roaring south-easter.
There were several hundreds of mallard, widgeon, and
teal, with pochards and tufted ducks, and there was
shelter for all in the bay behind a wooded island. A
few of them took advantage of it, but rather by chance
than by choice, it seemed, for by far the larger number
of them sat outside for hours on the ice, in the teeth

8 THE POWER OF BIRDS TO ENDURE COLD

of the piercing blast. Most of them remained motion-
less, asleep, with breasts to the wind, and head tucked,
not under the wing (a bird never sleeps with its head
under its wing), but among the soft scapular feathers
above the wing. How is circulation maintained in
their feet? What is the structure of a bird's foot,
which though sensitive and nourished by a flow of
blood, yet can resist frostbite during hours of contact
with the ice? When one of these birds wakes, he
waddles contentedly to the open water, slips over the
edge, swims about for a little, then out again, and to
sleep once more. The diving ducks — pochard, tufted
duck, and goldeneye — sleep by choice on the water.
So long as there is an unfrozen space they will not
leave it. It is starvation and not cold from which
birds die in a hard season. Woodcocks and seagulls
can stand a very low temperature, yet thousands of
each died in the long frost. The former have been
very scarce in consequence during the succeeding
winter of 1895-96.

Ill

This lake is a never-failing source of interest to me.

Occupying about one hundred acres, bosomed in sloping

A Lake woods, and distant from the sea not more

Sanctuary fa&n a mjje of bird-flight, it is resorted to

by great numbers of waterfowl of many kinds. For

more than half a century it has been treated as a

sanctuary. No impious gun is allowed to be fired

there — a regulation which, in my salad days, I used

JANUARY 9

to denounce bitterly as quixotic and tyrannical. No
doubt it appears in the same light to the rising genera-
tion ; but to the field naturalist it has afforded unusual
opportunities of observation. Mallard, teal, coots,
water-hens, water-herons, and snipe haunt it all the
year round; cormorants and seagulls fly in from the
sea; in autumn flights of widgeon, tufted duck, and
pochards arrive, and a few scaup and goldeneyes drop
in to tea, as it were; wild swans and goosanders are
among the rarer visitors, and four years ago a bittern
condescended to take up his quarters in the reed-bed
at the lower end.

To my taste, a voluntary population like this has
infinitely greater charm than a collection of foreign
wildfowl, which must be pinioned to prevent them
obeying the migratory instinct and departing in spring.
A bird deprived of its glorious powers of flight is,
of all cripples, the most pitiable, and its plight the
most heartrending.

Moving quietly along the woodland paths beside the
lake, with a spyglass, one gets many a peep into the vie
intime of some of the wariest of feathered creatures.

It is difficult, by the by, to account for the different
degrees of shyness among wild birds, and some of these
degrees are very well marked among those frequenting
this lake. The aversion of the cormorant to the most
distant sight of man, and the care he takes to keep
at least two gunshots from the shore of a lake where
none of his kind have forfeited their lives for more
than fifty years, may be set down to a guilty conscience.

10 A LAKE SANCTUARY

The same cause accounts for the wakeful suspicion of
the heron; but why should the blameless ducks and
divers manifest such different degrees of confidence ?
Next to the coot, the most numerous species here is
the common mallard, and on this water it is also
the boldest, though in the open country or at sea no
bird is more difficult of approach than are wild ducks.
Their comparative tameness on the lake is owing,
no doubt, to so many having been bred in the sur-
rounding woods; but, then, why does not that condi-
tion affect the teal also, which always remain nervous
and keep aloof ? Again, take two of the diving ducks,
which, though very similar in habits, are very different
in their fear of man. The goldeneye takes wing on
his distant approach, but the tufted duck shows an
engaging, but often misplaced, confidence in his harm-
less intentions.

The name goldeneye is commonly applied on the
west coast of Scotland to the tufted duck (Fuligula
cristata). Both species have a bright yellow iris, and
the plumage of both presents strong contrasts of black
and white ; but the tufted duck, though a pretty and
interesting bird, is very inferior in size and beauty
to the true goldeneye (Clangula glaucion). The latter
is known as Rattlewings in some places, because of its
noisy flight.

Very fascinating are the vignettes of wild life revealed
by the spyglass on a bright winter morning with snow
on the ground. Sweeping the lens slowly round the
water-margin, one may detect many a brightly coloured

JANUARY 11

little group, some standing on the snow in sunny nooks
under the leafless alder copse, others floating on the
placid surface — all perfect pictures of security and
content.

IV

There is a special reason just now for the content of
wildfowl in this sanctuary, because of the extraordinary
growth of the Canadian pond- weed. It must
have come there as a fragment adhering Canadian
to the plumage of some travelling duck, P°nd'weed
for it does not exist anywhere else within a radius of
forty miles. One would say that there was danger of
the whole lake being turned into a morass, so dense
and all-prevailing are the masses of vegetation ; but
experience has shown that this strange exotic disappears
as quickly as it comes. When first introduced to a
sheet of water, it multiplies with prodigious rapidity,
and threatens to choke all the channel ; but in two or
three seasons the soil becomes exhausted, the weed
shrinks into a verdant carpet at the bottom, till, after
the lapse of ten or a dozen years, the soil has recovered
strength to send up another vast crop, which passes
away in like manner as the first.

The introduction of this weed (Elodea canadensis)
into European waters is part of the romance of botany.
It is said that a Cambridge professor, having received
some specimens from a botanical friend in Canada,
incautiously left them in his wash-hand basin, whence
they were emptied by an over-diligent housemaid into
that bourne whence no specimen returns. A few years

12 THE CANADIAN POND-WEED

later, beds of a weed new to English botanists were
found to have taken possession of certain reaches in
the Cam, and great was the throwing up of scientific
hats at this notable addition to the British flora, which
received the name Anacliaris alsinastrum. But in
fulness of time the Anacharis of the Cam came to be
identified with the Elodea of Canadian lakes, and the
murder was out — the sprigs thrown out of the pro-
fessor's dressing-room had found a congenial home in
an English river. Moreover, the newcomer soon spread
beyond the hospitable bosom of the Cam. Getting into
the canal system, it threatened to bring to a standstill
the traffic, which was of vastly greater importance in
those days than it is now ; so that an opinion gained
ground in commercial circles that either the professor,
or his housemaid, or both of them, should be put to
a violent and painful death. One circumstance alone
seemed to mitigate the disaster. Elodea canadensis
is a dioecious herb, bearing, like the aucuba and holly,
male and female flowers on different plants. The
professor's specimens happened to be all of the mas-
culine gender, therefore no seeds could be produced.
It is true that this irrepressible weed has the property
of breaking itself into innumerable fragments, each one
of which inaylgrow into a huge continent of vegetation ;
but the lakes and streams of Great Britain are not
contrived on a scale to support the prodigious growth
which might ensue on a periodic discharge of fertilised
seed. Hitherto Elodea has been known in British
society only as a bachelor ; let no professor nourish

JANUARY 13

the ambition of adding another chapter to the ' Loves
of the Plants ' by importing his bride also, else there
will be unpleasantness.

Meanwhile, although the appearance of this weed
on a sheet of ornamental water is nothing short of a
calamity, it is a calamity not without mitigation. The
angler may weep or swear, according to temperament
or sex; but great is the gain to the wild-fowler and
naturalist, for this succulent weed offers irresistible
attraction to numberless aquatic birds. Here, on the
White Loch of Myrtoun (which is the name of our
sanctuary), the effect on bird life has been remarkable.
Simultaneously with the outburst oiElodea, the widgeon
arrived. This beautiful duck, though common on the
adjacent sea-coast, was never seen, at least by me, on
this lake till the autumn of 1893, when five of them
spent the winter there, and added their wild whistle to
the familiar sounds of the place. The following year
there were about a score, and, at the moment of writing
(1896) they may be seen in hundreds.

Their presence has given quite a new character to
the winter population. The chief arrivals in autumn
used to consist of pochards, clad in silvery grey and
black, with russet heads, and tufted ducks, in simple but
effective livery of sable and gleaming white. Fleets of
these conducted diving operations in silence ; but now
the air is full of the ' whewing' of widgeon, which move in
dense restless flocks, swiftly swimming, gobbling, and
talking with their mouths full. Usually shyest of all
waterfowl, here they have conformed to the habits of

14 THE SHOVELLER

the natives, and take wing only just beyond gunshot.
Viewed through the glass, their movements are most
engaging : one longs for one of those Japanese artists —
deftest of all limners of bird form — to fix their changing
attitudes and delicate hues. All the duck tribe, when
undisturbed, have a comfortable, amiable, contented-
with-the-world-as-it-is sort of expression ; but widgeon
most of all. Then the contrast between a drake
widgeon afloat and the same bird on the wing is very
fascinating. Afloat, he presents a shapely compact
tournure, pearly grey on back and sides, roseate breast,
ruddy crest, and fawn- tinted face. He takes wing, and
suddenly seems to increase to twice the size, while
unsuspected tracts of foamy white become the most
conspicuous parts of his plumage.

V

Besides the widgeon, another surface-feeding duck,

the shoveller, has been attracted hither, for the first

The time in my recollection, by the abundant

shoveller <jiet. A little fleet of a dozen make the lake
their winter headquarters, and the striking plumage of
the male bird is a welcome ornament to the scene.
They keep aloof from the restless widgeon and diving
ducks, consorting chiefly with the mallard, which they
resemble in many respects.

The ungainly proportions of the shoveller (Anas
clypeata) is notable among a family of birds dis-
tinguished for elegance of form. The plumage of the
male bird is very showy, consisting of an arrangement

JANUARY 15

of rifle green, bright chestnut, black and slate-colour,
on a groundwork of swan white, in general effect not
unlike the colour-scheme of the sheldrake. Those
anglers who credit salmon with a fastidious discrimina-
tion in colour set much store on the russet thigh
feathers of the male shoveller, which are held essential
to the right composition of the ' Britannia ' fly. The
female wears a modest garb, not differing greatly from
the mottled brown mantle of the female wild duck.
But in both sexes the effect is marred by the bill,
which is grotesquely long, broad, and depressed, sug-
gesting an organ of prodigious gluttony. Strange to
say, this lateral dilation of the bill takes place during
the growth of the young birds, which are hatched with
mandibles of the moderate proportions of other surface-
feeding ducks. The shoveller never goes in large
flights, but is seen either in pairs or in little bands of
less than a dozen. It is said to be more of a fresh-
water than a marine fowl ; and it is remarkable that,
although it is widely distributed over the northern
parts of both old and new worlds, Herr Gatke, in the
course of fifty years' experience, only once knew of its
occurrence in Heligoland.

VI

The scaup duck (Fuligula marila) is stated by all
authorities to be almost exclusively marine in its habits,
rarely visiting inland waters. Nevertheless, The Scaup
there is generally a pair or two on the White Duck
Loch in winter ; and I am inclined to think observers

16 THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE

are apt to mistake this bird for the tufted duck, with
which it usually consorts, and closely resembles on the
water at a distance. The male bird shows black and
white, like the tufted drake, and it is only through the
glass that he can be recognised by the silvery grey
back, which in the tufted drake is sooty black The
irides of the scaup, also, are white instead of yellow.
The female birds are very similar in appearance, though
the old duck gets a ring of white feathers on the face
round the bill.

VII

The latest addition to the lake populace is that ot

the great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus). In the

spring of 1894, being on a visit to Lord

crested Dartmouth at Patshull, in Staffordshire, I
was greatly interested to see numbers of
this fine bird nesting on a large mere in the park, and
conceived a strong desire to get some of the eggs, which
I thought it might be possible to hatch, and that the
young birds might become naturalised on the sanctuary
of the White Loch. Owing, however, to the peculiar
nature of the incubation of this species, which, like all
grebes, lays its eggs awash, and keeps them constantly
wet till they are hatched, that idea had to be abandoned.
Imagine my delight when, in November of the same year,
I detected a solitary great crested grebe busily fishing
in the White Loch. It is a very rare bird in Scotland,
and has only been recorded hitherto as nesting in two
Scottish lakes — the Lake of Menteith and, if I mistake

JANUARY 17

not, somewhere in Fife. How this solitary individual
found its way, as if in answer to my wishes, to the
White Loch, it would be difficult to say, for it is a
bird very reluctant to take flight. It does, however,
fly strongly when once on the wing, and migrates far
and wide.

Well, this lonely bird remained until the great frost
locked up the lake for nearly two months (notwith-
standing that Camden in his Britannia affirms that
the White Lake of Myrtoun never freezeth, no, not in
the hardest winters), when it disappeared. It returned
again in spring and remained, still solitary, throughout
the summer of 1895 and the succeeding winter. But
the best remains to tell. By hook or by crook, in the
spring of 1896, he (or she, for it is not easy to dis-
tinguish the sex of these grebes) obtained a mate,
nested, and produced three young. It was a pretty
sight through the glass in August to watch one of
the parent birds fishing, while the young ones played
around. From time to tune the old bird brought up a
little perch ; then there was a race between the young
ones to secure it. Their movements were so quick,
that I failed to detect whether the old one fed the
three young in turn, or whether it was first come first
served.

[Advantage may be taken of a new edition to add
that these grebes have bred regularly on the White
Loch every season since 1897. In 1900 there were two
nests. I have never seen the loon, as he is called in
Norfolk, on the wing, yet he must be pretty hardy in
B

18 SPRING SALMON

flight, as the species is so widely spread both in America
and in the Old World, and although never seen in the
tropics, is found in New Zealand and Australia. Loons
are decidedly on the increase in Britain. I saw one in
1899 on a pond near Aldershot, and in 1900 they were
reported in the nesting season from Richmond Park.

Another important addition to the visiting list of our
sanctuary falls to be recorded under this month (1901).
On the 12th I saw for the first time a single specimen
of the Sclavonian grebe (Podiceps auritus), and on the
14th had a good look at him through the glass. It
would be too much to expect this stranger to nest with
us ; the Sclavonian grebe has never been recorded as
breeding so far south. Nevertheless, I cherish a faint
hope of seeing these handsome birds in their summer
livery, which is a very gay affair compared with their
sober winter garb.]

VIII

Not less mysterious than the migratory impulse
among birds is that which regulates the seasonal
spring movement of salmon. That they should
salmon ascend rivers in the autumn floods is intelli-
gible enough, seeing that they spawn in November and
December. In like manner as birds fly as near home
as they can to nest, so the instinct of salmon takes
them back to their native shallows to reproduce their
kind. These inland waters are the home not only of
the individuals, but of the race ; for it is probable that
salmon and brook trout were originally one and the

JANUARY 19

same species. Adventurous individuals of the trout
kind dropped into the estuaries of post-pliocene streams
in search of food, just as they may be observed to do at
this day, whence the boldest and strongest of them
pushed on into the ocean, where food of the richest
kind is most abundant. They got over the preliminary
qualms of sea-sickness, throve abundantly, their com-
plexion changed, they acquired all the airs of pelagic
fish, and despised the timid landsmen. There is, in
truth, less outward difference between a salmon in his
dark winter dress and a yellow trout than there is
between an A.B. seaman and a Hampshire ploughman,
or between a dowager arrayed for a Court Drawing-
room and the milkmaid who made syllabub for Izaak
Walton.

If this be so, it is easy to understand why salmon
show such indomitable energy in ascending to the head-
waters where they were born, hastening away again as
soon as the domestic task is over, to surfeit once more
on marine dainties. But it does not explain why, at
this season, nine months before the earliest spawn is
ripe, they should desert the waters of plenty and enter
icy Highland torrents, where there is not food to
sustain one in a hundred of them. And, be it noted,
for every fish that runs up British rivers under existing
conditions, a thousand would ascend but for net-fishing.
It cannot be in search of food that they leave the tide,
as the researches of Herr Miescher into the life-history
of Rhine salmon have gone far to prove. That patient
observer testifies to the steady absorption of the pro-

20 SPRING SALMON

teids, fat, and mineral salts from the muscles by the
ovary, which goes on from the moment the salmon
leaves the sea till the spawn is deposited. Nor is this
loss made good in any appreciable degree by food taken
in the upward journey ; for in almost every salmon
taken in the Rhine and examined by Herr Miescher,
the intestinal canal has been found to be completely
empty, though in a few instances there has been found
a small amount of dubious debris, generally imbedded
in glairy mucus. Indeed, the form of the stomach
alters during the ascent of the fresh water — 'from
being a large thin- walled organ, it becomes contracted
and thickened into a tube with hardly any lumen
(enclosed space), the inner surface of which is puckered
and thrown into deep rugae.' The stomach, in short,
ceases to act as a receptacle of food. This may go
some way to explain the greater readiness of fresh-run
salmon to seize the artificial fly, compared with those
which have lain long in fresh water. Further research
may dispel the mystery which envelopes the rising
mood in salmon, and confirm the view taken by many
practical anglers, that it is more from curiosity, mis-
chief, or irritation, than from hunger, that these fish
ever take the fly at all. But let not those despair who
esteem mystery the crowning charm of angling ; there
is enough obstinacy among Tweed boatmen as to the
'right fly' to ensure the exclusion of coldly rational
principles in fishing that fair stream for many a day
to come.

To sum up, then, the conclusion to which this specu-

JANUARY 21

lation brings us: salmon which enter a river before
their ovaries are much developed do so neither with
epicurean nor immediately matrimonial views. They
are fish surfeited with sea diet ; their tissues are glutted
with fat; they can eat no more. So, to escape por-
poises, seals, sea-lice, and other pelagic plagues, they
seek shelter in the rivers where they were bred.

IX

How little like the rigours of last season has been
the winter of 1895-96 ! This day— January 20th— the
air is still and warm ; the mist which hung winter
so low all morning is yielding slowly before Flowers
the afternoon sun, which makes the wet woodland ivy
gleam like malachite, and turns the fallen leaves of
beech and oak to glowing copper. Sheets of snowdrops
make mimic winter on the banks; they showed their
first blooms before the New Year. Frilled aconites
hold up their little golden cups, and already there are
a few azure stars on the trailing periwinkle — Rousseau's
favourite flower. Distinguished for its delicious scent
is the winter heliotrope (Tussilago fragrans). This
plant, though it is an exotic, is as hardy as its near
relatives, the common coltsfoot (T. farfara) and the
butterbur (T. petasites); in foliage it resembles the
former, in flowers the latter. Few gardeners know it or
grow it ; yet it is a herb of such exceeding merit that
none ought to be without it. Nothing but severe frost
prevents it flowering freely through the winter months,
and a bunch of it scents a whole room with a perfume

22 WINTER FLOWERS

exactly like that of heliotrope. One word of warning —
plant it not among other choice things, but in a border
by itself; for it spreads as quickly and is as hard to get
rid of as any weed of them all. It will make itself a
home on any sunny waste piece of ground, and once
established, it is a joy for ever ; you and your children
to the third and fourth generation will never cease to
thank me for telling you about it.

Another fragrant winter flower is seen in English
gardens, if possible, more rarely than the winter helio-
trope. It is 'an evergreen shrub, Azara integrifolia,
worthy of the protection of a wall by reason of the
multitude of golden blossoms which spread along the
under side of the sprays in January, strongly scented
like hawthorn. More commonly grown is the Japanese
Chimonanthus fragrans, also known as Calycanthus
prcecox, diffusing its powerful perfume at the dead
season of the year. One should be careful to get the
variety called grandiflorus, though herein nurserymen
have customers pretty well at their mercy, and use
them rather unmercifully. It is exasperating to order
a plant of some particular species, and to find when it
flowers, perhaps years afterwards, that it is some other
and inferior kind. Within a few yards of my front
door is a large bush of what ought to be the sweet-
scented, autumn-flowering Clematis flammula, for that
is what I paid for ; instead of which it has proved to be
a worthless, scentless weed, grown so lustily that it will
take half a day's work to remove it.

Another Japanese plant, this time a valuable winter-

JANUARY 23

flowering shrub, in which one is very likely to be
deceived in the same way, is the beautiful witch hazel
(Hamamelis arborea). Time after time I have received
from tradesmen the American H. virginica, a plant
of no merit whatever, and found out too late that no
crimson and yellow flowers were to reward me at
Christmas-time. It is worth some trouble to get this
shrub, for it is as hardy as box, and the blooms, like
small orchids, load every spray.

The hellebore season in properly managed gardens
may be made to last five or six months. It opens with
the giant Christmas rose (Helleborus niger maximus),
far the fairest of all, which begins to flower late in
October; then come the other varieties of H. niger,
commonly known as Christmas roses, after which the
white, purple, and streaked species, and Dutch hybrids
prolong the series till Easter.

X

People say, truly enough, that we are warm in the
west because of the Gulf Stream; but few care to
inquire into the meteorological machinery WestCoaa
by which it affects the temperature. The Meteoro-
mere afflux of a body of water, a few degrees Offy
warmer than the rest of the Atlantic, against the
western shores of these islands, would never add appre-
ciably to the warmth of the air. If that were so, then
it would raise the summer temperature as many degrees
above that of the rest of Great Britain as it does the
winter temperature; whereas it is well known that,

24 WEST COAST METEOROLOGY

while the mean winter temperature of the west coast
is several degrees higher than that of the eastern and
midland districts, the mean summer temperature is
several degrees lower.

The actual effect of the part played by the Gulf
Stream in this matter is a great deal too complex to be
laid bare in a couple of pages. Those who feel inclined
to go into the subject will find it admirably discussed
in Mr. R. H. Scott's handbook,1 altogether the most
lucid and attractive treatise that has yet been placed
in the hands of unscientific readers. Roughly and
briefly, the most probable explanation of the problem
is on this wise. The atmosphere in the equatorial zone,
expanding enormously under the influence of great heat,
is perpetually rising to very high levels, whence it over-
flows towards the poles. Contracting again as it cools,
it descends and meets the earth surface somewhere
about the thirtieth parallel of latitude. But the cir-
cumference of the globe being much less in that region
than in that of the equator, the velocity of the move-
ment of the earth surface from west to east is propor-
tionately less. The descending atmospheric current
retaining, in the region of less circumference, the higher
velocity it acquired in the region of greater circum-
ference, its eastward movement outstrips that of the
earth surface in the temperate zones. Consequently,
the atmosphere over the British Isles has a constant,
steady movement from south-west to north-east, though

1 Elementary Meteorology. By Robert H. Scott. International
Scientific Series. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co., 1883.

JANUARY 25

this, of course, is not always apparent, owing to local
winds arising from the presence or proximity of areas
of high or low pressure.

The heated air, rising to very high levels, is cooled
down before it descends again to the earth surface;
but in our latitude, coming in contact on its descent
with the warm ocean current known as the Gulf Stream,
and remaining in that contact while travelling over the
Atlantic, it regains a high temperature from the water.
This acquired heat is immediately employed in sucking
up moisture from the surface of the ocean, which is
borne along in the invisible form of vapour. Our
bodies are not sensible of heat so employed, therefore
in summer (that is, so long as the atmosphere can use
its heat in water-carrying) we are conscious of a cool-
ness at sea or on the west coast. But in winter all is
changed. The warm vapour-laden current, striking our
chilly shores, or raised by high cliffs or mountains to a
colder level, suddenly parts with its heat, loses its hold
on its burden of vapour, which becomes visible or
tangible in the condensed form of mist, rain, or snow.
Then — and this is the important point — the heat till
now employed in carrying vapour is released from its
task and goes to raise the temperature of the air.

The influence of rainfall upon temperature is hardly
suspected even by those exposed most constantly to its
effects. Dr. Haughton affirms that one gallon of rain-
fall gives out enough latent heat to melt seventy-five
pounds of ice or forty-five pounds of cast-iron, and that
on the west coast of Ireland the heat derived from

26 THE BOTTLE- TIT

rainfall is equivalent to half that derived direct from
the sun.1

XI

In this long strip of wood facing the western sea, the

windward trees are grotesquely dwarfed. The outmost

The asn and sycamore are aged dwarfs, from four

Bottle-tit to ^g^ feet ^h . an(j though the trees not
exposed directly to the blast rise to loftier proportions,
yet the tops in the whole wood are shaved and pared
to an uniform slope. Hoary lichen clothes stem and
branches, excellent harbour for many minute forms of
life, enough to account for the presence of a shoal of
long-tailed tits, restlessly flitting and twittering among
the branches. There are few birds more fascinating
to watch than these absurd little creatures. There are
about a score of them in this flock, though indeed it
is impossible to count them, for they are never still.

Two features distinguish this tit from all others,
namely, a most diminutive bill and a most extravagant
tail. The stature of the animal, measured from the tip of
the one to the end of the other, amounts to the respect-
able stature of five inches and a half; but more than half
of this is contributed by the three central pairs of tail
feathers. Generally it is possible to account for, or at
least guess at, the meaning of abnormal features in
animals; most often they may be recognised as an
adaptation to habits or conditions of life, or as an
ornament of the males to tickle the fancy of their
mates, or they remain as a legacy from some obsolete

1 Physical Geography, p. 126.

JANUARY 27

organ. But in the bottle-tit no such explanation holds
good. Both sexes are furnished alike, and there is not
the slightest clew to a reason why this diminutive bird
should be equipped with tail feathers double the length
of those of any of its congeners.

The nest, too, of the bottle-tit is a remarkable
structure ; and I, like many other people who are not
careful to observe for themselves, used to imagine that
its bottle shape was designed to accommodate the long
tail of the parent bird, just as civilised man carries
a box of peculiar shape to carry his monstrous head-
gear. See how vain it is to speculate on such matters !
I have never been lucky enough to see the parent bird
sitting on her eggs, but I am told by those who have
done so that she sits with her tail sticking out of the
front door. What, then, is the object of the deep
purse-like nest, with its thick sides of warm material ?
One would say that it was intended to keep up tempera-
ture during incubation. The tiny body of the mother,
not much more substantial than that of one of the
large hawk-moths, could not replace the heat escaping
from an open nest ; indeed, it is wonderful how it can
supply enough to hatch the large number of eggs,
sometimes from ten to eighteen. But, then, if that
be the purpose, how comes it that the gold-crested
wren, a creature no bigger than a bottle-tit, has never
invented a lid to the cup-shaped nest in which it rears
its young ? In habits, as well as in appearance, there
is a great difference from other tits in the longtailed
tit, or, if you prefer it, the mufflin, bottle-tit, poke-

28 FEATHERED POLICE

pudding, long-pod, caper-longtail, mumruffin, or huck-
muck, for rural fancy has been fertile in devising
names for this tiny creature. It goes about its quest
for food in an amateurish, unbusinesslike way, very
unlike the eager, professional scrutiny of the pretty
blue tits, of which there is a pair examining the sprays
of yonder larch. Very different, too, from the little
tree-creeper, a dingy and humble relative of the gaily
pranked woodpeckers, which is quartering every inch
of that oak-stem with short, quick, jerky pace. Its
total length from head to tail is about the same as the
bottle-tit (we have got among the midgets to-day) ; but
in this instance the object of prolonged tail-feathers
is not difficult to divine, for they are stiffened and
divergent, so as to form a useful prop to the proprietor
in his work on vertical surfaces.

XII

Now this little drama, enacted on this January after-
noon by these diminutive performers, is part of the
Feathered great scheme known as the balance of Nature,
police Here, within a space of fifty square yards of
a wind-swept wood, are three distinct species of birds,
all in pursuit of the same quarry, namely, insect life in
various stages. One might think that neither larva,
nor chrysalis, nor creeping creature could escape the
diligent search of so many pairs of bright, beady eyes.
But insect life is not only gifted with enormous repro-
ductive powers ; it is in itself so admirably contrived
for existence, that, were special provision not at hand

JANUARY 29

to keep it in check, it would possess the face of the
earth to the exclusion of every other. Mr. David Sharp,
who has in charge the insect department of the excel-
lent Cambridge Natural History now being published,
observes with professional pride —

'The larger part of the animal matter existing on the
whole lands of the globe is, in all probability, locked up in
the forms of insects. Taken as a whole, they are the most
successful of all the forms of terrestrial animals.'

Antinous and the Venus de' Medici are not in it,
it seems. In fact, mere human beings would be
crowded out sooner or later but for one providential
circumstance, namely, that this vast populace of six-
legged creatures is divided into two hosts, one of which
is perpetually destroying the other. Even this were
not enough, for the victors would make life intolerable
for other forms of living things; so birds, beasts,
reptiles, and fishes of many kinds have been appointed
to police these dangerous classes.

XIII

No part of the British Isles was more completely
denuded of its native wood than this south-western
angle of Scotland, and with the forest dis- Revival of
appeared much of the woodland fauna. We primitive
still dig out of the clay at our river-mouths fauna
horns of red deer of a size that could be attained only
in the warmth and shelter of wide forest; so that it
does not need the more direct testimony, which is also
present, of trunks and roots of oaks, Scotch fir, birch,

30 REVIVAL OF PRIMITIVE FAUNA

and yew to prove how greatly the character of the land
has changed during man's occupation. But during the
present century much has been done in the way of
plantations ; and it is interesting to observe, still more
interesting to assist, the return of some of the wild
creatures to their ancient heritage.

Squirrels have found their way back across the tree-
less Galloway uplands within the last dozen of years.
Possibly their reappearance may be due to the escape
of captives; anyhow, here they are in considerable
numbers, and they are looked on by woodmen with
feelings not altogether friendly. They are mischievous,
no doubt, eating the shoots and leaders of young pines ;
but who would judge harshly a creature with such
bright eyes and such engaging manners ?

Badgers, formerly plentiful, as attested by many
ancient names of places containing the syllable
'brock,'1 had quite disappeared, but an importation
of five from Berkshire about twelve years ago has
produced a numerous progeny. There would be risk
of arousing angry feelings by any proposal to restore
our polecats, which I remember seeing trapped in
my boyhood. There is probably not one in the whole
district now, though they, too, have their names em-
balmed in the Celtic topography of the south-west :
witness such a name as Corriefecklach — that is, coire
feacolach, the corrie of the polecat or stinking one.

i The name for the badger — broe — is the same in Gaelic as in Anglo-
Saxon ; hence Brockley, near London, means the same as Brocklach
and Carsenabrock in Galloway.

JANUARY 31

Jays — noisy, gaudy, voracious jays — hateful to Eng-
lish gamekeepers, have been surreptitiously turned
loose, and the Scottish yarde-chasse has not woke up
yet to their profligate nature, which, after all, is no
worse than a jackdaw's. When you have cleared the
country of ugly jackdaws, say I, it will be time to talk
of exterminating the handsome jay.

We had some difficulty in establishing jays. First
we tried putting their eggs under blackbirds. There
was not the least difficulty in getting eggs; it was
quite remarkable how generous people in the south
showed themselves in the matter of jays' eggs. One
keeper in Surrey, hearing of my wants, set to work,
and collected about fifty; but as he was at the pains
to blow them all before sending them off, the consign-
ment did not greatly assist our scheme of acclimatisa-
tion. In the end, the desired object was attained by
the purchase of a dozen young jays from Mr. Bailey of
Mount Street, and now our woods resound with the
harsh chiding note of these and their offspring.

jFe&ruarp

XIV

WE have lost something in discarding the Anglo-
Saxon names for the months in favour of the classical
Anglo-Saxon style. It was ridiculous to borrow the name
month-names Februarv from our Roman conquerors, be-
cause they chose to celebrate their Februa, Lupercalia
or purifying festivals, in that month ; there was some
sense in the Saxon name Sol monath, mire month,
which, like many of the other month-names, gives us
a glimpse of England as it was when the earliest
ploughs had just begun to scratch its surface. The
mire month — just as the old Dutch used to call it
Sprokkel-maand, the thaw month, when the earth
softens after the whiter cold.

The Saxons had their purifying season also in the
old pagan days, but it was September, which they
called Halig monath, which is quite as sensible as our
servile compliance with the Eoman calendar in calling
it the seventh month, whereas it is the ninth in our
year. Then what a finely descriptive title they gave
to March — Hreth monath, the fierce month. As for
the other months, December was Se serra Geola, the
former Yule, as January was Se aeftera Geola, the latter

FEBRUARY 33

Yule; April was Easter monath, taking its name,
according to Bede, from Eostre, a Teutonic deity of
Spring. It is curious that neither Easter nor Lent
derive their names from Christian sources. Lent is
the old English name for Spring, from the Anglo-
Saxon lencten. May was Thrimylce, because the cows
might then be milked thrice a day. June and July
were Se serra and Se seftera Litha, the earlier and the
later warmth; August was Weod monath, the weed
month ; October was Winter-fylleth, probably the
winter fall; and November Blot monath or blood
month, from the slaying of beasts.

If the native names for days of the week have worn
so well in use, what cause had our people to distrust
those for the months ?

XV

A wide, dark plain, without a single tree or even a
bush in sight for miles, swept by a ceaseless, bitter
wind, lashed by fierce blasts of snow, and ^g river
overhead a stooping canopy of grey cloud, ofxnor
That is the impression of a Caithness landscape on
one alighting at Halkirk station on a February noon.

No scene more forlorn or inhospitable could be
found within the British Isles. The prevailing brown
tones of the land are hardly more varied than the
steel grey of the heavens ; brown heather, brown peats,
brown stone houses ; even the roofs — most of them —
are of brown flags, though the great whisky distillery
of Gerston strikes a noisier key with its covering of
c

34 THE EIVEE OF THOR

purple Welsh slate. The ploughed land is brown too,
and the wan pastures nearer pale brown than green.
Through the great plain winds a sullen river, the
Thurso, whose waters, though snow-fed, are brown
also. Its course is silent, save where, at long intervals,
brown barriers of rock oppose and work it into sudden
short-lived roar of wrath. Else there is no sound but
that of the wind, rising from sigh to shriek, and falling
back again to sigh and sob. Eows of rust-coloured
Caithness flags, square and smooth as tombstones,
separate the fields, so that it seems as if this were in
truth a land of the dead, set with unending graveyards.
Where the crofts have made way for large farms,
leagues of barbed wire intersect and divide the hold-
ings, a form of barrier even more forbidding than the
tombstones. Then, afar on the southern horizon,
Morven, landmark for all Caithness, lifts his lonely
peak, marking ' the high light ' with snowy cone.
Only in the north, where the cloud lowers darkest,
the headlong precipices of Hoy, southmost of the
Orkneys, refresh the eye with deep, rich blue.

What can it have been that induced the Norsemen,
for centuries lords of this shore, to name this river
after their most vengeful deity ? Thurso — that is,
Thor's a — the river of Thor — should be something
majestic or appallingly destructive, one would say ;
but this stream, though dark and deep, is insignificant
in volume compared to the rivers of Scandinavia, and
even when in full flood is not to be feared like the
Spey or the Findhorn. Perhaps their imaginations

FEBRUARY 35

were touched by the intense dreariness of the near
landscape and the mysterious gloom which so often
hangs over the sea. It was a sense of the overwhelming
forces of nature that has caused their English-speaking
descendants to twist the old Norse name of the head-
land lying to the west of Thurso Bay into one expres-
sive of the implacable storms which rage there in
winter. Cape Wrath, we call it, but the Norsemen
named it Hvarf, which means the ' turning-point ' ; for
it was here their black kyuls turned southward in
sailing to the Sudrey — the southern isles — now called
the Hebrides.1 After all, perhaps the most reasonable
explanation of Thurso may be that the river was named
after a harmless fisherman called Thor.

XVI

There is no word to describe the climate to-day so
fitly as the Scottish one 'snell.' Man and beast must
be cowering under the humble roofs dotting
the wayside and the fields, for we have day in
driven three miles along the dreary road Caitlmess
to Westerdale without encountering either. A string

1 The histories of some names are curious. This one — Sudrey, the
southern isles — has disappeared from our maps, where Sutherland,
originally conferred by these same invaders from the north, still
remains ; but to this day we continue to talk of the diocese of Sodor
and Man, by reason that it once consisted of Man and the Hebrides.
The name Hebrides took its rise from a copyist's blunder. Ptolemy
and the earliest geographers wrote it Kbudse or Hsebudse. The i
character carried uo dot till the eleventh century, so there was some
excuse for the copyist, who mistook u for ri. Hsebudae was, there-
fore, written Hebrides in a manuscript from which an early edition of
Pliny was printed ; the name took root with us in that form, and was
carried by Captain Cook to the southern hemisphere.

36 A WINTER DAY IN CAITHNESS

of wild geese passes overhead with much clangour,
hardly out of gunshot : of half a score golden plover
whisking low along the marsh, only one utters a single
note of unspeakable melancholy ; a single, inauspicious
cormorant wings a business-like flight towards the lochs
of Strathmore, where, as he knows, is good store of
eels ; the only cheerful creatures abroad are chirruping
bevies of snow-buntings — a bird of which no degree of
cold or storm seems able to lower the spirits or abate the
activity. Even the rooks become listless and depressed
under stress of weather.

There is, however, one condition of climate which
even the snow-buntings cannot withstand. As long as
a few acres of grass and rushes remain bare of snow,
so long can these cheerful little fowl pick up their
frugal fare of small seeds. But when deep snow wraps
field and fell in uniform pallor, they must move else-
where, driven, not by cold, but by hunger. Thus it
came to pass early in February 1895, that almost
every snow-bunting had left Caithness. Only two or
three pairs of crafty old birds might be seen still
haunting the stackyards and threshing-mills.

Where had they gone ? I found an answer the
very day I returned to London. A paragraph in the
morning paper informed me that large quantities of
snow-buntings had been seen about Highgate, where,
of course, scores of them were captured by birdcatchers.
Never more might they see the iron cliffs of Hoy;
never more in the broadening light of spring cross the
wide sea to their loved nesting-places in Arctic lands.

FEBRUARY 37

They must beat out their little lives in the back slums
of Bermondsey or Whitechapel, or linger till the ad-
vancing heat puts an end to their sufferings. For
even Bechstein, most skilful of birdkeepers, found it
impossible to keep the snow-bunting alive in captivity
for more than a few weeks, so impatient it is of a close
or warm atmosphere.

There are many doleful chapters such as this in the
annals of the bird trade

XVII

The presence of rooks in this treeless land suggests
speculation, not only as to where they can build their
nests, but where they can find sticks to Ravening
fashion them withal. It is roundly affirmed Rooks
that they do so in whin bushes ; and it was not till
I had sojourned some days in the district that I became
aware of sundry groves of stunted, wind-warped ash-
trees round the houses of Dale, Gerston, and Brawl.
Gramercy ! what a jolly time these rooks have ! No
one ever molests them, yet the havoc they work in the
stackyards must be seen before it is believed. The
slender ricks, locally called ' screws,' ridiculous things
shaped like pepper-castors, are riddled to honeycomb —
torn to utter dishevelment by these swarthy marauders.
Rock pigeons and starlings attend to profit by the
ruin ; the loss consists, not only in what is eaten, but
in the damage of rain and thawing snow pouring
into the stacks. Nobody seems to notice this except
strangers such as myself, and threshing proceeds in

38 RAVENING BOOKS

leisurely fashion, as occasion arises for fodder; yet,
assuredly, had rooks been landlord's game, the country
would have resounded with angry clamour about them
long ere this.

The fact is, what to do with our rooks is becoming
a difficult question in the north. Up to a certain, or,
to speak more precisely, an uncertain point, the farmer
is entitled to count them among his allies, by reason
of the number of grubs and other pests that they
devour. But there is certainly a measure beyond
which this bird ought not to be allowed to increase.
In England rooks are kept fairly in check, because
rook-shooting is a favourite amusement in spring. A
pitiful sight it is, to be sure, the massacre of a colony
just at the period when the law protects most breeding
birds; and the only justification for it is that of
necessity. In Scotland it is far otherwise. There,
nobody ever thinks of shooting rooks for sport, and
few people do so from motives of police. The conse-
quence is that they are multiplying beyond all due limits;
they have the marauding propensity of the crow tribe,
and other and more beautiful or interesting species
are suffering from their depredations. I feel rather
bitterly on this matter just now, having had to mourn
last spring the loss of a nest of Canadian wood-duck
eggs, pilfered by a pair of these swarthy miscreants.
True, there are sinister whispers abroad that the
mischief was wrought by jays, which, as described
above, we have succeeded in re-establishing in Galloway,
a district whence they had been absent for centuries.

FEBRUARY 39

But inasmuch as there was no eye-witness to this deed
of guilt, and whereas there are five hundred pairs of
rooks in these woods to every pair of jays, and seeing
what incorrigible egg-stealers rooks become at times, it
is reasonable to set down the crime to the score of the
ugly birds rather than of the pretty ones.

There are no more remorseless revolutionists than
men of science. Which of us has not grown up in the
pious belief that the type of monarchy among birds
was supplied by the eagle? Few people paid much
attention to MacGillivray when, sixty years ago, he
announced that the crows (Corvidce) must be accounted
among the most highly organised birds ; l nor (though
in the interval the light of evolution had been thrown
on the tangled maze of systematic classification) was
much importance attached to the late Professor Parker's
indorsement of MacGillivray's view, pronounced forty
years later : —

'In all respects, physiological, morphological, and orni-
thological, the crow may be placed at the head, not only of
its own great series (birds of the Crow form), but also as the
unchallenged chief of the whole of the Carinatce.'2

Nevertheless, here comes the very latest authority
of all, Professor Alfred Newton, the collaborates
in classification of Herr Gadow, and sums up thus
in the introduction to his admirable Dictionary of
Birds : 3—

1 British Birds, i. p. 485.

2 Zoological Societies Transactions, ix. p. 300.

3 London : A. and C. Black, 1896.

40 ROBERT DICK

' It is, therefore, confidently that the present writer asserts,
as Professor Parker, with far more right to speak on the
subject, has already done, that at the head of the class Aves
must stand the family Corwdce, of which family no one will
dispute the superiority of the genus Corvus, nor in that
genus the pre-eminence of Corvus cwax — the widely-ranging
Raven of the Northern Hemisphere, the bird perhaps best
known from the most ancient times, and, as it happens, that
to which belongs the earliest historical association with man.'

The eagle is for ever discrowned ; allegiance must be
paid to the raven as the monarch of fowls of the air.

XVIII

To enter thoroughly into the spirit of penultima

Thule, one must read Smiles' Life of Robert Dick, baker,

botanist, and geologist of Thurso. There are

Robert Dick . , .

few things more pathetic than devotion to
an intellectual pursuit, maintained without a word or
look of encouragement, interest, or sympathy from
friend or neighbour. Such was Dick's lifelong lot;
nay, the townspeople, shrugging their shoulders, used
to hint that he was 'daft/ and murmured at him
because his bread suffered by reason of the ardour of
his studies. He used to set the loaves soon after mid-
night, and, leaving his house at four in the morning,
set off at a run for Morven, distant some thirty miles
of moor and quag, and, having filled his satchel with
plants from marsh and crag, return on foot over the
dark plain in time for the morrow's baking.

At other times Dunnet Head would be the goal,
where the flags are richest in fossil fish. A neighbour

FEBRUARY 41

found him prying and hammering one day in a quarry.
' What are you seeking there, Robert ? ' he asked. ' Fish/
quoth Robert ; and straightway the wayfarer bore the
tale to Thurso how Dick, the baxter, was gone clean
demented, for he was looking for fish in Gerston quarry.

Dick, however, had his moments of ecstatic reward,
such as are known only to intellectual workers. One
such came when he discovered the little northern grass,
Hierochloe borealis, till then unknown as a British
plant. Another was when Sir Roderick Murchison,
attracted by reports of Dick's collection of Old Red
Sandstone fossils, travelled to Thurso to inspect it. One
may picture the tremulous delight of the obscure but
faithful disciple, all unused to exchange thoughts on
the subject ever uppermost in his mind, hovering round
the great man, and laying up every syllable that fell
from his lips, to be mused over and repeated in many
a long, lonely ramble.

A sad calamity overtook the solitary student. He
was no longer, as he had been at first, the only baker in
Thurso ; a rival shop had been set up, and competition
became keen. One day the steamer from Leith took
the bar of Thurso in a storm. She carried a consign-
ment of flour for Dick, which was badly spoilt by salt
water. It was not insured ; poor Dick could not afford
to buy any more, and just worked the damaged stuff
into loaves. The result was more than his remaining
customers could stand ; they all went off to the new
shop, and Dick was ruined. To meet his liabilities, he
had to part with his noble collection of fossils — the

42 SNOWED UP

work of his life. Murchison secured it for a hundred
pounds, and it may still be seen in the Geological
Museum in Jermyn Street.

Had Robert Dick baked better loaves, his name had
borne no significance for this generation; as it is,
every foot of the way between Dunnet Head and
Morven is enriched with memories of the baker
naturalist of Thurso.

XIX

Even Avignon is not buffeted more persistently by
the winds than Halkirk. If north, south, and west
fail to produce a gale, then it blows hard and
steady from the east. But when, as happens
at times, the fierce cold abates and the biting blasts
are lulled, the cloud mantle rolls away, and a truly
glorious sun swings overhead. The very bareness of
the land, which makes the bitter wind so intolerable,
seems to double the amount of sunshine ; the browns
of the landscape waken into dull gold, russet, and
maroon ; the leaden surface of the pools and winding
river change to intense azure, and the distance takes
tender tints of violet and pearl. It is then one becomes
aware of the splendid quality of the atmosphere, and
comes to understand how the hardy men of Caithness,
braced and sweetened by actinic virtue, can put in
long spells of ferocious weather, enough to knock all
courage out of coddled city folk.

For nine days past (February 1895) the village of
Halkirk has been the only part of the universe to

FEBRUARY 43

which we have had access, or, indeed, with which we
have had any intercourse, except by telegram. It
happens so seldom that the even tenor of the mail
bags and daily papers is interrupted in these islands,
that one feels the exponent of a novel series of sensa-
tions. Not one of the old people in the village can
testify to a severer ' lying storm ' than that which we
are now experiencing. Not that it is the actual weight
of snowfall that has brought about our isolation ; but
for drifting, the average depth would not greatly exceed
eight inches. It was the furious wind that did the
mischief, piling the snow into wreaths twenty and
thirty feet deep. For the last five days, a hundred
men have been cutting away at one such drift, about
five miles long, on the line between Altnabreac and
Forsinard. Every shovelful of snow has to be lifted
three times, for the only way to clear the cutting is in
a triple tier of stages. Two trains were imbedded there
for several days, and when the men reached them
yesterday, it was found that the wheels were all frozen
hard, and the carriages were as immovable as ever.
These surfacemen themselves were in considerable
jeopardy, for they were working many miles from any
shelter or supplies ; a train of provisions, sent up from
Helmsdale, got snowed up in a fresh drift near
Kinbrace, and the poor fellows suffered severely from
hunger and exhaustion before they could be relieved.

Meanwhile we, who are not yet on short commons,
find our lot not without alleviation. The tempest
which brought the snow has passed away, and the

44 SNOWED UP

climate has become divine. The frost is intense at
night, but morning by morning the sun rises in un-
clouded splendour, and, sailing along his course low in
the southern sky, changes the vast expanse of white
into all kinds of opaline and pearly hues.

The magic of sunshine is never more potent than on
a great snow-field. All the shaded surface is delicate
blue, reflecting the azure of the sky ; the illuminated
portions are warm cream colour or rosy. Now and
then there comes a change. A huge bastion of cloud,
table-headed, with gleaming crest and trailing violet
skirts, rears itself in the north and spreads across the
firmament. The sun is first veiled with a tawny inist,
and then passes out of sight. Immediately the whole
landscape seems to shrink and cower. The scene, so
smiling and radiant a moment ago, becomes forlorn
or grim ; Morven's solitary peak is hidden from view ;
the air, so delicious in its calm keenness, turns harsh
before the chill breath of the storm, and already the
flakes are flying fast. But the evil hour passes, the sun
blazes out once more, and there is something indescrib-
ably exhilarating in the atmosphere.

In spite of the cold and exposure of this land, chest
and lung complaints are very rare. Consumption, the
terror of the milder west, is almost unknown ; alto-
gether, there are many worse places to be snowed up in
than Halkirk.

Nevertheless, here, as in less salubrious plains, the
King of Terrors claims his tribute. A few days ago,
while the storm was at its height, there was a burial in

FEBRUARY 45

the bleak little kirkyard, perched on a bluff crag, round
which Thurso creeps between bastions of ice. Roads
were impassable for all but foot passengers, and these
struggled with difficulty through the wreaths. God's
acre was swathed in white : only in one spot had the
pall been pierced and the ruddy earth thrown out to
make a grave. The mourners gathered round, a group
intensely black upon the snow. No pomp of funeral
procession, no roll of muffled drum, no wailing pipe, no
sobbing organ could have lent pathos to the simple
severity of the scene, silent save for the rushing mighty
wind.

How few summer tourists have any idea of the winter
aspect of their favourite haunts ! In an enclosed
country, a fall of snow has the effect of The
dwarfing the landscape. Distant objects are lands in
brought near, and near objects show up so wm er
sharp and black in the surrounding pallor that the
view loses its breadth. But among mountains the sense
of size is increased. Hills seem higher and valleys
vaster under snow. The pass between Dalwhinnie and
Dalnaspidal, even as viewed from the comfortable
cushions of a railway carriage, presents a scene during
this great snowstorm of February 1895 not soon to be
effaced from memory. Hardly a rock is visible; one
unbroken sheet of white covers the moorland fore-
ground, wraps the frozen river, and towers on the
mountain domes to meet the deep blue of the sky.

46 THE HIGHLANDS IN WINTER

Herds of red deer may be seen close to the railway
at various places. Hard pressed as these have been for
food for some weeks past, the hinds still seem in fairly
good condition, for the herbage is still fresh under the
snow, and deer can scrape away the covering with their
sharp hoofs. Still, it takes a great deal of grass to fill
the stomach of a stag. Where they are beyond reach
of hand-feeding, the poor beasts must be feeling the
effects of short commons ; and it will go harder with
them yet in the long, laggard Highland spring, for it is
late before any life stirs in the wan hill herbage. We
are accustomed to regard red deer as beasts of the
mountain, like chamois and ibex, but naturally they
prefer the woodland and vale. Greedy man has grasped
all the fat places of the earth, so deer have been driven
to the high grounds, and have deteriorated greatly in
consequence. Highland antlers, even the best of them,
are puny affairs compared with those produced in
German forests or in Windsor Park. The immense
horns which are dug out of lowland mosses and
estuaries show what magnificent heads were produced
in Scotland when the deer were free to roam where
they listed. As long, however, as a stag can get a dry
bed, he can endure a very low temperature, and a hard
winter like this tells with less severity on a red deer
than a wet one.

There is news from Rannoch, the bleakest tract of
moorland in Scotland, of the heaviest snowfall within
living memory. It will be hardly credible to those
who know the red deer only when the stags are in

FEBRUARY 47

' pride of grease ' in August and September, when they
are the wariest of all beasts of the chase, that the poor
things have been so humbled by starvation, that it is
with difficulty they can be kept out of the forester's
and farmer's houses. At Ball, on Loch Rannoch, the
hinds actually took corn out of the forester's hand, and
at Dunalastair stags and hinds crowd down to hay
laid close by the public road.

XXI

The riverside remains the chief attraction for all
forms of life, though very few parts remain unfrozen.
Snipe rise before you, flit a few yards, and Tne frozen
alight again. This frost, if it continue, means river
death to them, for they are already so weak that they
cannot make their way to more genial latitudes. Wild
geese, generally so plentiful in the meadows between
Halkirk and Westerdale, have departed, but mallard still
linger on the marshes, and a few mergansers frequent
their usual fishing grounds. This morning a brace of
wild swans were on the point of alighting on the Manse
pool, where I was fishing, when they caught sight of
me, and winged their way further up the river. The
gillie told me he knew exactly where they would be
found, and assured me I could get a fine chance at
them. I surprised, and perhaps disgusted, him by
saying that if I were to be offered twenty guineas a
piece for these lovely creatures, I would never draw a
bead on them.

Fishing, quotha ! Yes ; the contemplative man still

48 THE FOES OF SALMON

pursues his recreation in the limited space left unfrozen.
The space would be still more limited but for the
exertions of the gillies, who break and lever away the
floes with heavy poles, and fish may be tempted to
look up at a big fly after the water has been rested
for half an hour. But there are not many clean fish
in the only pools to which access may be had through
the snow, though kelts are numerous and greedy in
these. We have only got two clean fish in ten days.

XXII

Few living creatures have more numerous or persist-
ent foes than the salmon. The sea, the rivers, the air,
The foea of are full °f creatures looking out for a succu-

saimon jent meai Were it not that the salmon is
a physical masterpiece, not only perfectly adapted for
an active career and capable of laying up such store
of condensed nutriment in its muscles as enables it
to undergo long periods of privation, but also endowed
with enormous reproductive powers, the race must have
succumbed long ago to adverse influences, and have
ceased to exist. Even now, when but few places re-
main unfrozen in the river, gloomy gluttonous cor-
morants ply their nefarious trade among the young
fish. One morning lately, two of our men were sent
to break the ice on the pond connected with the
hatchery, where the yearling parr are kept, till the
silver spreading over their jackets shows that the time
has come for their release on their seaward journey.
Hardly had the men turned their backs, when a

FEBRUARY 49

cormorant flew to the place, like a great winged boot-
jack, and began poaching. Not this one, but its fellow,
paid the penalty of death, and in falling disgorged a
trout of nearly a pound in weight.

Later on, when the smolts, or young salmon, begin
to descend, a sight may be witnessed which might
suggest misgivings to the advocates of indiscriminate
protection of all wild birds. Seagulls of various kinds
assemble on the shallow fords, and swallow thousands
of young fish, each of which, were it spared, would
return some day as a spanking twenty pounder. It
goes to my heart, too, to bear witness against goosanders
and mergansers, those birds of dainty plumage and
aristocratic mien; but the gillies have good cause to
hate the 'sawbills,' as they call them, because of the
many smolts which gasp their last in the serrated
mandibles of these active fellows.

XXIII

There is a humble member of the noble family of
Salmon which deserves more consideration than has
been shown it hitherto. The smelt, or, as we
call it in Scotland, the sparling, known in
France as the eperlan (Osmerus eperlanus), is usually
classed by fishermen among those technically known
as 'white fish,' in distinction from 'red fish,' a term
applied to salmon and trout. As a white fish, it has
been captured and sold for centuries, and not one of
the innumerable Salmon Fishery Acts affected it in the
slightest degree. So matters might have continued

50 THE SMELT

till, not very long ago, it was discovered that meddle-
some men of science, never weary of dissecting,
classifying, and inventing long-tailed names, had
assigned the smelt a distinguished position between
the char and the grayling, to which it was clearly
entitled in virtue of possessing an adipose fin and other
structural peculiarities. Henceforth, the unobtrusive
little smelt was to hold an exalted place among that
haute noblesse of scaly creatures — the Salmonidce — to
share all the benefits conferred on these by the wisdom
of Parliament, and to entail on the unwary all the
penalties enacted against unlawful fishing.

This discovery spread dismay among certain quiet
estuarine communities. For generations the fisher-folk
had netted the smelts in their passage to and fro,
believing them to be just as legitimate quarry for the
white fisher as haddocks or flounders. Suddenly the
lessees and owners of salmon fisheries asserted their
right to the smelts as ' red fish,' whereby some stormy
feelings have arisen among the dwellers at the mouths
of rivers frequented by this dainty little fish.

Londoners have no idea of the real excellence of
smelts. To be eaten in perfection, the fish should be
carried from the nets into the kitchen and served
forthwith. There comes to mind a quiet fishing village
on Solway shore. It is early on a winter morning, but
the air is still and warm. The small-meshed seine is
coming slowly to shore, filled with a shoal of pearly
' sparlings.' As they are drawn from the muddy water
of the estuary, a fragrance as of cucumbers and violets

FEBRUARY 51

diffuses itself, plainly perceptible at a distance of more
than fifty yards.

The fish, as soon as landed, are neatly packed in
small boxes, and sent off to the great towns, where they
command a high price — 3s. or 4s. a pound. But by
the time they arrive at their destination they will have
lost much of their delicate texture and exquisite
flavour, which we shall presently be savouring in the
inn parlour close at hand.

The smelt is an exclusively estuarine fish. In March
it ascends to the limits of brackish water, and sheds its
spawn profusely on stones in the river-bed. There is
no close-time provided for these fish by law ; hence in
some rivers — the Annan and the Nith, for example —
where they were plentiful in former times, they have
been netted to the verge of extinction, and the industry,
once very profitable, no longer pays. All fishermen to
whom I have spoken on the subject agree that a close-
time is desirable ; but so long as it is not made binding
upon all alike, none is willing to hold his hand, while
others may be fishing at other parts of the same
stream.

XXIV

WOULD you view fair Levens aright? you must visit
it in earliest spring, for that is the season in which to
A North rea^se its peculiar charm. Summer, hi sooth,
country is sweet there ; nowhere does June sunlight
HaU fall on fairer prospect of sloping lawn, grey
crag, deep-bosomed wood, and bending river ; but then
— every English park is enchanted ground in summer.
In autumn this northern vale is rich with ripening
grain, stretching away to the silvery limestone bluff of
Whitbarrow, and round it to the blue loops and crests
of the Cumberland range. But westland autumns are
of precarious mood ; it is depressing to gaze on a sloppy
harvest through streaming panes. In wan winter
twilight, when lights beckon early across the frore,
the old hall is almost too picturesque, suggesting the
cheap art of Christmas cards. But though winds of
March, sweeping bare the land to prepare it for summer
finery, often bring cold more searching than midwinter,
there are basking places among the velvety alleys and
under the hoary walls of Levens garden where one may
forestall the solstice.

There is a smell of impatient vegetation in the air ;

MARCH 53

the blackthorn has veiled itself with a chilly haze of
bloom ; already there are patches of timid verdure on
the hawthorn hedges; beneath them the cuckoo-pint
has shot up groves of glistening blades,

' And along the tracks, like troubled sprites,
The dead leaves whirl along.'

But the brightest gleam in memories of early spring-
tide in Westmoreland comes from the daffodils. Copse-
wood glade and roadside bank, mill meadow and village
orchard, upland lawn under limestone crag, — all are
decked in the fairy livery of green and gold. One
may drive for miles through this fair champaign and
never lose sight of Lenten lilies — in wreaths or scattered
clusters, in links or shining sheets.

Even in this county, rich as it is beyond most in
examples of old English halls, Levens stands by itself
in the unaltered character of both house and sur-
roundings. One is even disposed to complain of the
lofty larches, towering over the entrance, as out of
place, for there were no larches in England in the
days of the Cavaliers. The deer park has not varied
from the limits set out in the royal licence to enclose
it, granted in 1360. It is true that the original build-
ing, a pele tower of the ordinary border type, dating,
as its arched doorways bear witness, from the thirteenth
or early fourteenth century, has been largely added
to. The Bellinghames, lords of this manor during
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, were a wealthy
family ; one Sir James, knighted by James I. on his first

54 A NORTH-COUNTRY HALL

progress through the northern counties, spent liberally
on Elizabethan architects, to whom we owe the spacious
hall, the drawing-room with its noble mantelpiece of
carved oak, the quaint library with still richer oak
carving, and the numerous bedrooms above, which to
wander among is occupation for a long rainy afternoon.
There prevailed in those days a practice, much to be
commended to modern builders (unless they are
ashamed of their work), of carving in each room the
initials of him who caused it to be built or decorated,
with the date. Thus the mantelpieces in all these
rooms are inscribed with different years from 1586 to
1617, while heralds and genealogists delight in collat-
ing the chronology from the escutcheons embossed
and painted on the plaster cornice dividing panelled
wall from fretted ceiling, or inserted in the stained
glass of the lattices.

Except a few bedrooms over the kitchen and offices,
and a well- conceived tower over the garden front, there
has been no interference with the Elizabethan work.
Elizabethan, that is, with traces of northern influence ;
for the chimney stacks, built of small flakes of lime-
stone, climb the skies in the cylindrical form peculiar
to the district. The interior is wonderfully rich in old
oak. The rooms are panelled throughout; there is
abundance of carving, exquisitely delicate and rich,
although some of the walls, notably those of the dining-
room at the west end of the hall, were spread with
stamped and highly coloured Spanish leather by Sir
James Bellingham in the seventeenth century. This

MARCH 55

profusion of decoration had its rise in rivalry with the
neighbouring squire of Sisergh,1 and contributed to
the insolvency which forced Alan Bellingham to part
with his beautiful home in 1690.

In that year the property passed into the hands of
Colonel Graham, or Grahme, as he used to write it,
of the house of Netherby, to whom Levens owes its
pre-eminence among the gardens of England. Not
elsewhere — except, it may be, at Hardwicke — remains
such a perfect display of the lost topiary art. Graham
employed Monsieur Beaumont, who, as is recorded
upon his portrait at Levens, laid out Hampton Court
gardens for James n. There was a garden at Levens
before the arrival of Beaumont, probably in the
Elizabethan style, with 'rare figures of composures,'
knots and pleached alleys ; for on the green there still
remain bowls bearing the Bellinghame crest, as well as
those engraved with that of Graham.

Minute details of the works undertaken by Beaumont
have been preserved in letters from the steward Banks -
to his master, dating from 1699 to 1703. In the autumn
of 1701 he records a great storm, which ' hath done great
damedg in the garden a mongst trees, bemun (Beau-
mont) is very much disturbed about is trees, he wants
stakess for them.' It is satisfactory to know that his
wants in this respect were supplied, for he ' made the

1 The tapestry lining of one of the rooms at Sisergh was bought in
1891 for South Kensington Museum, and when it was taken down, was
found to conceal a beautiful oak panelling.

2 It is a coincidence that the present steward at Levens is named
Banks.

56 A NORTH-COUNTRY HALL

carpenters cout out the stackes out of the hart of a
good eish tree.' 'Damedg' having been made good,
the Frenchman went to work with a will. His name
proved a heavy stumbling-block to the honest steward's
orthography, being rendered variously 'bemun,' 'bamant/
' beamant,' and ' Mr. Beomant,' generally without a
capital initial, as if in stout Westmoreland contempt
for the foreigner. 'The ould brockenwinded coach
hors dyed this day comeing from Milthropp with a
sack of otes on his back. We shall not know what
to do in the garden for him, and the other all most
killed weth contenually working . . . but beamont
hath put all the borders in as good order as he cane,
he is now moving and altering his flowers and plants,
and allso hath poulled down the heg was round the
mellion ground, and hath planted the helli bore
round the place, and he got very good stacks coot
and set round it.'

Such letters, full of placid details of a country
gentleman's recreation, are in strange contrast to many
others which must have been delivered by the same
posts ; for Graham, a staunch and restless Jacobite, was
proclaimed repeatedly, and once was imprisoned on a
charge of high treason. His ambitious schemes, his
darkling plots, his hopes, scares, success, disappoint-
ment,— all may be traced in his correspondence. How
little fruit they bore ! But the lowlier achievements of
M. Beaumont endure in perfection at this day.

It is fairy ground, this quiet pleasaunce of Levens,
a shred of a bygone age, surviving restless modes and

MARCH 57

ephemeral habits. Yews, elaborately clipped into
semblance of towers, columns, vases, lions, and pea-
cocks, stand in preposterous array along the broad
paths; and between their sombre forms, in borders
deeply edged with ancient box, there flame out each
summer ' bemant's ' crimson and white roses, carnations,
lilies, and wealth of old-world flowers.

There is brewed at the Hall, after a time-honoured
recipe, a dark, heady beverage called ' Morocco.' It is
produced on state occasions, and many have learnt to
pledge heartily the prescribed toast, ' Luck to Levens
while Kent runs ! '

XXV

There is a belief prevalent in some districts that
rooks begin the foundations of new nests, or repairs on
old ones, on the first Sunday in March. Be Wreck
that as it may, the daffodil moon of 1895 among
has been one of sore tribulation to Chaucer's °°
' crow with voice of care ' ; for the violent gale which
swept over the Midlands on Sunday the 24th not only
levelled many of the finest trees in the rookeries of
Warwickshire and Berkshire, but tore hundreds of
nests, laboriously brought to completion, out of the
branches of those left standing, scattering the material
in shapeless ruin, just as the birds were beginning to
lay. On the whole, rooks have fared scurvily this
season. Thousands perished in the mighty gale which
visited Scotland on December 22. They were killed by

58 THE EFFECT OF FROST ON VEGETATION

falling trees, or blown from their roosts and dashed
against the swaying boughs. For days after that
memorable night, the woods were full of piteous
cripples, broken- winged, which, except those that were
mercifully put to death, eked out a miserable existence,
till the great frost came to put an end to their
suffering. Others, again, were blown into the water
and drowned. In Lord Stair's beautiful grounds at
Castle Kennedy in Wigtownshire, there is a large
rookery on an island in one of the lakes. The day
after the storm, the gardeners collected the corpses
of upwards of five hundred rooks, washed up on the
lee shore.

XXVI

Gardeners may be heard bewailing now (1895) the
havoc wrought among shrubs and herbs by the extra-
ordinary cold ; but it serves a more useful
of Frost on purpose to note those plants of doubtful
vegetation ^,.^00^ which have resisted it. In the
gardens in and near London, perhaps the most notable
and unexpected instance is afforded by an evergreen
of comparatively recent introduction to this country,
a native, too, of New Zealand, which is a region
producing a flora of which the greater part has proved
impatient of our climate. Olearia Haastii, as botanists
have somewhat clumsily named it, is a shrub of the
order Composites, typified by our own daisies and
thistles, with leathery, evergreen leaves, beautifully

MARCH 59

buff on the under surface, and loaded with small, white,
fragrant flowers in July and August. After the bloom
has passed, its place is taken by a mist of cottony
seeds, which persist all winter. Not only has the
Olearia proved as hardy as common box, but it is
framed to resist the malign influence of London smoke,
so fatal to most evergreens.

The common gorse has suffered sadly from frostbite,
and most of the commons near London will be grievously
dull this spring in consequence. It is nearly all killed
to the ground, though I have noticed a few bushes still
green and vigorous on Wandsworth Common. What
a glorious thing it is, and how little our poets have
done to celebrate it ! One never realises its splendour
till a season has to be passed without its goblin gold.
Gorse will not endure Scandinavian cold, and the story
has often been told — mutato nomine — of Linnaeus, that
for long it was only known to him as a greenhouse
exotic, and that when he first saw an English common
covered with bloom, he burst into tears of gratitude.
The anecdote is authentic, but its author was not
Linnseus, but another botanist, Dillenius, who tells it
about himself.

Myrtles endure a very low temperature with impunity,
though they seem to require the breath of the sea to
keep them vigorous in our latitude. Here, in the west
of Scotland, not only have the plants trained on walls
suffered no more than the nipping of a few sprays, but
those in the open ground have lain comfortably lapped
in snow ready to start into fresh growth. I felt much

60 THE GREEN WOODPECKER

anxiety about a fine specimen covering the end of a
toolhouse here. Planted as a cutting in 1851, it reaches
twenty feet high, the stem is twenty inches in circum-
ference, and each autumn it bears a load of fragrant,
creamy blossoms.

Every lover of Nature has cause to rejoice at one
result of the great wind of March 24, 1895, namely,
the righteous ruin which has overtaken many of those
odious field advertisements, which disfigure the land-
scape all along the principal lines of railway. Hundreds
of these have been blown down: may Priapus, god
of gardens, blister every hand put forth to erect them
again !

XXVII

The voice of spring is manifold. Hardly had the
grip of the cruellest winter of this generation been
The Green re^axe(i ere tne °^ familiar sounds began to
wood- be heard in the woods. The chiffchaff and
the wheatear, ever among the earliest arrivals,
seem to have landed together; for both are reported
on the same day (March 21) from the counties of
Surrey, Devon, Worcester, and Dorset. But one of the
most trustworthy of spring heralds is never absent
from English woodlands — the yaffle or green wood-
pecker. The throstle and the merle are often beguiled
into song by fallacious February sunshine, and let no
wayfarer leave his wraps because the ringdove coos
smooth assurance from the elm. There is no trust to

MARCH 61

be placed in these. But as soon as you hear the
yaffle's laughing note you may be sure the sap is rightly
astir, and that the grove will presently grow dim with
new greenery. The jay, harshly garrulous at all
other times, falls cunningly silent in the nesting
season; but the yaffle cannot hold his tongue in the
honeymoon.

Many green woodpeckers perished in the great frost ;
for, as is well known to those who study their habits,
these birds depend almost as much on ants and other
terrestrial insects as on those harbouring in trees. A
heavy snowfall cuts them off from this source of supply.
It was, therefore, with special pleasure that I listened
to their notes this morning (March 20) among the old
oaks of the Forest of Arden, giving assurance that the
tribe is far from extinct. The yaffle is one of the
bonny birds that run heavy risks by reason of their
gay plumage. His sage-green mantle, flaming crest,
yellow rump, and chequered tail-coverts have brought
him into great request with the ' plume ' trade, which
our gentle ladies, by their passive obedience to despotic
milliners, so deplorably encourage. Not that the other
sex can be acquitted of purblind guilt in this matter.
There are very few, if any, English manors where the
death register of game and ' vermin ' has been kept for
so many years, or in such minute detail, as at Lord
Malmesbury's beautiful place, Heron Court, near Christ-
church. There are some mournful entries in the
following list of vermin destroyed by the keepers on
this estate during the year 1852 : —

62 THE GEEEN WOODPECKER

Squirrels, 220

Jackdaws, 210

Woodpeckers, .... 50

Hedgehogs, 250

Cats, . . . . . .52

Stoats, 90

Magpies, )
Jays, / '

Hawks, 60

Rats, 300

Total, . . .1327

It would be hard to say which were the most
blameless in respect of injury to game — woodpeckers
or hedgehogs ; the last named, it is to be feared, still
figure in the black list of most gamekeepers ; but there
is ground for belief that during the last forty years
the character of the yaffle has been cleared from all
suspicion.

Indeed, there is hardly any bird which, by reason
of its insatiable activity in the pursuit of insects hurtful
to vegetation, better deserves protection at the hand of
man. Luckily, all the woodpeckers are very wary in their
habits, seldom offering a chance shot to the mischievous
hedgepopper, and requiring to be approached stealthily,
even by the friendly observer of its movements. It
is worth some pains to watch the yaffle at work upon
a tree. Beginning at the root, it raps incessantly as
it works up the stem, probably with the double purpose
of disturbing any lurking insects and of detecting any
unsound wood where fat grubs may be harboured. As
soon as the game is afoot, the tongue of the bird comes

MARCH 63

into play — a most serviceable instrument for picking
up creeping things. The tip is horny and armed with
a few bristles; the bone of the tongue is prolonged
backwards in two branches, reaching round the back
and over the top of the head, and meeting again in the
cavity of the right nostril, where they are fixed. In-
side the bow thus formed runs a strip of muscle, which,
when it is contracted, bends the bow and extrudes the
tongue. Then, beneath each ear is a gland discharg-
ing a glutinous secretion into the trough of the lower
mandible, where the tongue lies when at rest, so
that the bird is able to catch the smallest creeping
thing.

Admirable as is the tongue of the green woodpecker
as an example of consummate adaptation of structure
to requirements, it is by no means the only organ
which has been modified to suit this bird's peculiar
mode of getting a livelihood. The foot is what is
known as ' zygodactyle ' — that is, arranged with two
toes in front and two behind, and the tail-coverts are
stiff, with sharp points, so as to act as a support in
climbing. Then the breast-bone has been pared away
in a remarkable manner, so as to clear the tree-trunk
in ascending, for the yaffle never ' climbs down.' When
he gets as high on a tree as he thinks there is any
need for, he either begins operations again at the base,
or flies off in a jerky, undulating way to another. The
pectoral muscles are wanting in the depth and power
necessary for prolonged flight, which matters little to
a bird like the yaffle, of exclusively silvan habits,

64 THE GREEN WOODPECKER

though it is a mystery how some of the other species,
similarly specialised, can undertake their regular annual
migrations in spite of this disability. Dr. Bowdler
Sharp has recorded how five young great spotted wood-
peckers were brought to him and Mr. Seebohm when in
Heligoland. These birds had alighted in an exhausted
state in a potato field.

The characteristic formation of its breast-bone has
been an advantage to the yaffle in a way that can
hardly have been taken into account when it was
planned in Nature's workshop. The resulting shallow-
ness of the pectoral muscles — those muscles which
make the breast of a partridge such delicate fare — is
the reason why omnivorous man has never admitted
the yaffle to his larder; or at least, if he has done
so, it is not recorded that the experiment was ever
repeated. Even in France, where everything at all
edible is turned to immediate use for the table — where
the native culinary genius is so wonderful that I have
eaten a kelt salmon in that land, and enjoyed it too —
even in France, I say, nobody has ever concocted a
palatable dish of piverts. Thus it comes to pass that,
though one may travel in France for days in spring,
and never hear the gladsome note of blackbird, thrush,
or lark, you cannot be long in a French woodland
without being greeted by the yaffle's well-known cry.
It is as inseparably associated with the oak copsewood,
which represents the ancient forests of the Loire, as the
tassels of mistletoe are with the roadside poplars.

Yet another peculiarity of this family must be noted,

MARCH 65

even at the peril of the reader's patience, for I own to
a special weakness for woodpeckers.

The affinity of birds and reptiles in the scheme of
animated Nature has been recognised long ago. The
green woodpecker recalls the reptile kingdom in
another respect besides its creeping habit, its extensile,
viscid tongue, and certain anatomical peculiarities in
the bones of the head. Its young are hatched as naked
as young lizards, instead of being protected with down,
like nearly all other nestlings. Perhaps, however,
seeing that the nest is always in the heart of a tree,
down has been dispensed with as a superfluity, un-
necessary to young things so well protected against
cold draughts.

We have two other native species of woodpecker —
the Great and the Lesser Spotted — not less remarkable
than the yaffle for their gay coats; but they are less
likely to attract attention, for, unlike their green cousin,
they do not frequent ant:hills, they are not so talkative,
and they generally move among the higher branches
of the forest. Black, barred with white, with sparks
and streaks of scarlet, is the livery of the males of both
Picus (Dendrocopus) major and minor. The female,
also, is started in life with a smart cap of red feathers ;
but, strange to say, when the young hens attain the
age of six months, all red disappears from their
plumage, not by a moult, as Yarrell supposed, but by
a change in the feathers from red to black. A similar
change takes place in the young males ; the feathers
of the fore part of the head remain scarlet till the first
E

66 THE SEA-BLUE BIRD OP MARCH

moult, which comes at the age of about ten months,
when they are replaced with black. Simultaneously
the back of the head and neck, hitherto black, becomes
adorned with scarlet feathers, and remains so through
life. No reason has been found for these changes;
indeed, the conspicuous colouration of the British
woodpeckers is very surprising and unaccountable,
inasmuch as birds of similar haunts and habits, such
as the wryneck, treecreeper, and nuthatch, have the
advantage of protective colouring, closely resembling
the bark of trees which they frequent.

Woodpeckers — the green as well as the two spotted
kinds — are still to be numbered among the avi-fauna
of London, their appearance in Kensington Gardens
having been noted several times in recent years.

XXVIII

Shortly after Lord Tennyson's death, a controversy

took place in some of the papers about the identity of

The sea ^ k"^ referre(^ to by him in In Memoriam

Blue Bird as the ' sea-blue bird of March.' The weight

March Q£ Opmion seemed in favour of the wheatear,

which was not quite a satisfactory conclusion, seeing

that the wheatear has not a single blue feather in its

plumage. To quote Yarrell's description — 'The head,

back, and scapulars are of a fine light grey.' Now

Tennyson was far too close an observer of nature to

write sea-blue when he ought to have said pale grey ;

so it was interesting when Dr. Gatty came forward with

a little anecdote to set the matter at rest. It seems

MARCH 67

that the poet once asked Dr. Gatty what bird he
thought was described in the phrase ; and on Dr. Gatty
making a bad guess, he told him it was the kingfisher.

Why of March, rather than any other month, was
the next question, seeing that we have kingfishers with
us all the year round ? A writer in the Pall Mall
Gazette has solved that puzzle by quoting a stanza from
Alcman —

$aXe Sjj'/SdXe KrjpvXos firjv,
os T* eVl /ev/iaros av0os a/*' a\Kv6ve<ra'i 7roT»/Tat,
VT]\eyes rjrop ex^v, d\nrop<pvpos ("iapos opvts.

To wit — 'I would, I would I were a cock kingfisher,
which flies over the wave-crest with the hen kingfishers
with careless heart, the sea-blue bird of spring.'

XXIX

Episodes of the great frost continue to come to hand.
Everybody knows the excellence of 'blackface' mutton;
but the superior hardiness of the animal

The hardi-

which produces it is not often so precisely ness of
tested as it was by the following incident, SheeP
recorded on the authority of Mr. Maclellan of North
Balfern, a farmer well known in the south of Scotland.
On February 6th forty blackfaced sheep were buried
in a snowdrift, of which thirty-six were dug out with
great labour, the remainder being given up as lost. On
the 18th the shepherd noticed a small air-hole in a
great drift, from which vapour was escaping. Digging
down, he succeeded in liberating two of the missing

68 CROSSBILLS

ones, which bounded lightly away, and joined the rest
of the flock without more ado, seemingly none the
worse for their twelve days' fast. Three half-breds —
that is, half blackface, half Cheviot — on the same farm
lay in a drift for four days. These were helpless when
taken out, and had to be fed on gruel for a fortnight
before they were able to go with the rest of the flock.
Instances have been reported of blackfaced sheep,
buried in the same storm, surviving after entombment
for twenty-five days.

XXX

The winter of 1894-5 will remain memorable for the
number of unusual winged visitors it brought to our

inhospitable shores ; and, as it seems impos-

Crossbills . r. -, ,. ' J7"j

sible for an Englishman to see a rare bird

without instantly taking measures for its destruction,
there is the inevitable tale to tell of beautiful and
interesting creatures done to death.

Two species of crossbill have their place in the
British List, one of which, Loxia curvirostra, is a
regular native, though very far from common. The
other, Loxia bifasciata, is so named because of two
conspicuous bars of white across the wing coverts. It
is a rare straggler from the pine forests of Russia and
Siberia, and the plumage is of a richer and brighter
crimson than that of the regular British species. A
small party of these two-barred crossbills were forced
hither by stress of weather in February. One male, in

MARCH 69

fine feather, was shot out of a flock of five or six, near
Keynsham, in Somerset, and another out of a small
flock of the commoner kind at Enniskillen.

There is a peculiarity in the plumage of this showy
bird which often has caused disappointment to col-
lectors, and occasionally brings indoor naturalists to
ludicrous disaster. The glowing crimson of the head,
neck, and shoulders fades rapidly after death, so that
the stuffed crossbills in museums give a very misleading
idea of the appearance of the living creature. See how
neatly Mr. J. W. Tutt has walked into this trap in his
Chats about British Birds lately published. It is one
of a kind of book with which we are all painfully
familiar, written up to illustrations which have done
duty many times before.

'The Common Crossbill,' says this great authority, 'is a
remarkable bird ; . . . many have doubted that it nested in
the British Islands, although the presence of very young
birds in their striking juvenile plumage of dark green has
been very strong prima facie evidence of their having done
so. As they get older, they become of a dull brown colour,
but when they get the adult plumage are of a quite bright greenish-
yellow mixed with brown and purer yellow.'

Good Mr. Tutt! he has described very fairly the
appearance of the dusty specimen from which this
portrait was drawn; but apparently his reading has
not extended to Longfellow's version of Mosen's poem,
which preserves the monkish legend of the crossbill,
twisting its beak by trying to wrench out the nails
that held the dying Saviour to the cross, and ever-

70 THE CRANE

lastingly staining its plumage crimson with the sacred
blood.1

XXXI

The capture during last month of a rarer visitor than
either of the crossbills has been notified from county

Armagh. The local newspapers report it as
The Crane ]

a large grey bird, 'a fine specimen of the

Danish stork.' Now the stork (Ciconia alba) is not
grey, but black-and-white, and is not a winter, but
a summer visitor to these latitudes. The bird in
question, which was taken on the ice on Barton
Lough, is probably not a stork, but a crane (Grus
cinerea), which in the sixteenth century commonly
bred in Norfolk, and in Ray's time came in large
flocks to Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire at uncertain
intervals. But for some reason unknown, this interest-
ing bird has taken offence with us, and its sonorous
note is no longer heard in our land.

The blunder of an Irish newspaper in confounding
cranes and storks has at least two respectable pre-
cedents. The first was set by Rafael, who painted
cranes devouring fish in the foreground of the cartoon

1 Mr. Tutt, however, does make occasional excursions into poetry,
which are even more remarkable than the occasions when he ignores
it. For instance, on p. 59 of the work quoted there is the following
delightful rhapsody on the subject of the skylark : —

' In the deep blue vault of heaven, when the summer sun shines
brightly over the fields, the words of the old German hymn —

" Hark ! hark ! the lark at Heaven's gate sings " —
comes (sic) back to us in sober truth.'

MARCH 71

of the Miraculous Draught. The crane, unlike the
stork, does not feed on fish; there is, therefore, the
less excuse for Dr. Bowdler Sharpe setting the second
precedent, by inserting in his Naturalist's Library1
the figure of a crane devouring an eel, especially as
in the text he quotes Mr. Seebohm to the effect that
' the crane is not known to eat fish.'

1 British Birds, vol. iii. p. 113.

XXXII

PRESBYTERIAN Scotland makes no festival of Easter,
therefore Easter Monday is not a bank holiday north
of the Tweed ; yet, falling as it did in 1895 on
Tortoisesheii April 15, it was not only accentuated by un-
Butterfly ciou(je(j sunshine, but also, in the naturalist's
calendar, by a profuse hatch of the small tortoiseshell
butterfly (Vanessa urticce). This common species is
indeed one of the most beautiful of British lepidoptera.
The gentle contrast of cinnabar red, azure and velvety
black, spread in well-designed mosaic on the wings of
this insect when newly escaped from the chrysalis, is
quite as delightful as the more gorgeous display of the
exotic kinds. It is probably the hardiest of all British
butterflies. Sunny gleams in February and March often
call to life pale and tattered individuals of the foregoing
autumn's brood, which have slumbered through the
winter under the eaves of some barn or behind the
shutters of a village school. The winter of 1895-6 was
so preternaturally mild that there was nothing very
surprising that, even in the rigorous climate of Caith-
ness, the small tortoiseshell should have hybernated

APRIL 73

successfully. Still, it was worth noting that, when I
was starting from the inn at Halkirk to fish on
January 31, feeling something tickling the back of
my neck, I put up my hand and caught a tortoiseshell
butterfly. But the foregoing winter of 1894-5 was not
of a temper to spare many of these sleepers ; the marvel
is how even the chrysalides, suspended head downwards
from the tail-tip, can have resisted a temperature of
several degrees below zero. One would say that in
order to preserve unfrozen the circulatory fluid of the
pupa, the rind of the chrysalis must possess an extra-
ordinary degree of non-conductivity.

XXXIII

The small tortoiseshell is one of many handsome
insects of which the larvae feed on the stinging nettle.
Some of the most aristocratic caterpillars Thechoice
make this plant their staple diet — the red of food by
admiral, for example, the lordly peacock, ammals
and the rare Camberwell beauty. One can under-
stand, of course, how, if the stinging difficulty be
overcome, the nettle affords store of wholesome food ;
for, gathered young and tender during this month, it
makes a palatable soup for men and women, and
provides no sorry substitute for spinach. So, also,
the preference of many kinds of caterpillars for a
succulent salad of poplar and willow leaves is quite
intelligible ; and there is a fitness in such delicate fare
as violets to nourish the infant forms of such lovely
insects as the dark-green and silver-washed fritillaries,

74 THE CHOICE OF FOOD BY ANIMALS

and — rarest of our wood butterflies — the Queen of
Spain fritillary. The fragrant lady's bedstraw supports
a host of the brightest and choicest lepidoptera ; cress
and rapes supply wholesome diet for the whites and
orange-tips. Most of the gem-like blues are reared on
clover and leguminous plants, though even in this
family there is one — the holly blue (Lyccena argiolus)
— with a depraved taste for holly and ivy leaves. But
that is mild provender compared with some. The vast
genus of Spurges (Euphorbia), spread over the greater
part of the globe, contain a milky juice in great abund-
ance and of intense acridity, so painfully poisonous that
it is difficult to imagine a digestive apparatus competent
to deal with it. Yet in this country we have the spurge
hawk-moth (Deiliphila euphorbice), of which the cater-
pillar feeds exclusively on the sea-spurge (Euphorbia
paralias).

Perhaps, however, the readiest example of inscrut-
able taste in vegetable diet is afforded by the ever-
to-be-execrated rabbit. This creature, which, having
allowed it to do irreparable injury to our native
flora, we have transported to work similar mischief
in Australasia, shows a remarkable and unaccountable
discretion in its diet. Luckily for us, though greedy,
it is not omnivorous. It gnaws the common laurel,
which we consider poisonous, and avoids the rhodo-
dendron, belonging to the innocuous heath family.
It devours crocuses and rejects snowdrops, members
of a family very near of kin ; it eats hepaticas to the
ground, and avoids their cousins, the winter aconites

APKIL 75

and wood anemones. Luckily for our lanes and
woodland walks, the rabbit cannot digest the com-
mon primrose; but almost all the exotic kinds, such
as auriculas, are destroyed at once, and even the
coloured varieties of cowslip and common primrose
are not invulnerable.

Perhaps the results of a lifelong contest with rabbits
may not be without use to those who delight in
adorning their parks and grounds by planting out
and naturalising handsome shrubs and herbs. The
following list contains well-nigh all the ornamental
plants which may be relied on to defy the attacks of
rabbits ; though there are others, such as the American
partridge berry (Gaulteria shallori) and several species
of barberry, which, if protected when first planted out,
can take care of themselves afterwards : —

SHEUBS

Azalea, . . . . 1 ,, -, - .•

Khododendrons, . . . )al1 SPecieS and VanetieS'
Honeysuckle, . . . both the native species.
Fly-honeysuckle, . . Lonicera xylostevm.
Box.

Butcher's Broom, , . Ruscus aculeatus.
Tree Pseonies,

Lilac (all species), . . Syringa persica, etc.
Syringa (all species), . . Philadelphus coronarius, etc.
Snowberry, . . . Symphoricarpus racemosus.
Hardy Fuchsia, . • » . Fuchsia Eiccartoni.
Spurge Laurel, . . . Daphne laureola.
Mezereon, . , . . • ,, mezerium.
St. John's Wort (all species), Hypericum calycinum, arietinum,

etc.

76

THE CHOICE OF FOOD BY ANIMALS

SHRUBS— continued,

Spindlewood,
Guelder Rose,
Wayfaring Tree,
Laurustinus,
Cotoneaster (all species),
Hawthorn (all species),
Knotweed (all species),

Dogwood (all species, includ-
ing the American), .
Sea Buckthorn, .
Roses (all species).
Spiraea (all species).
Deutzia.

Ribes (all species).
Arbutus (all species).

Euonymus europaus.
Viburnum opulus.

„ lantana.

„ tinus.

Cratcegus oxyacantha, etc.
Polygonum cuspidatum, sacchi-
linense, etc.

Cornus sanguined, etc.
Hippophce rhamnoides.

HERBS

Snowdrops,
Snowflakes,
Daffodils (all species),

Star-of-Bethlehem,

Tulips of all kinds.
Solomon's Seal.
Asphodel (all species),
Lilies (some species) .

Torch Lilies (all species),

Saffron,

Squills (some species),

Galanthus nivalis.
Leucojum vernum, etc.
Narcissus pseudo-narcissus,

poetkus, etc.
Ornithogalum umbellatum,

nutans, etc.

Asphodelus ramosus, etc.
Lilium umbellatum, dalma-

ticum, etc.
Tritoma uvaria, etc.
Cokhicum autumnale.
Scilla campanulata, verna,

etc.

RABBIT PROOF PLANTS.

APRIL 77

HEKBS— continued.

Primrose (some species, in-
cluding P. japonica, but
none of the Auricula section).

Iris (all the ' flag ' species).

Anemone (probably all species).

Crowfoot and Buttercup
(several species, including
Trollius, but not the pretty
white Ranunculus amplexi-
caulis).

London Pride, and many
other kinds of Saxifrage,
but not the Crassifolia
section.

Lungwort, .... Pulmonaria mollis.

Periwinkle, both the large
and the small.

Monkshood, . . . Aconitum napellus.

Winter Aconite, . . . Eranthis hyemalis.

Harebell (many species, espe-
cially the Giant Harebell,
Campanula grandis).

Violets, foxgloves, asters (Michaelmas daisies), mul-
leins, several kinds of geranium, New Zealand flax,
Pampas grass, and all ferns and terrestrial orchids.

XXXIV

To return to the subject of vegetable poisons — the
vastness of this field of inquiry may be realised best by
considering some of the commonest pheno- vegetable
mena of the hillside and hedgerow. All Poisons
through the coming summer, plants and trees, stimu-

78 VEGETABLE POISONS

lated by the sunshine which everybody hopes is in
store for us, will be busy drawing material from the
soil, the atmosphere, the water, to be worked up in
their secret and intricate laboratories into essences —
nutritive and beneficial to some organisms, neutral or
hurtful to others. How very little we know of the
process, still less of the reason for the effects of the
various products !

Take the common stinging nettle, referred to above
as the favourite food of so many caterpillars. The
stinging mechanism has been explained to us as con-
sisting of hair-like tubes, sharply pointed, each with a
bulbous reservoir at its base, filled with an acrid fluid
which, in some exotic species, is of deadly potency.
We conceal our ignorance of the real nature of this
fluid, and of the means of counteracting its effects, by
explaining to each other that its poisonous principle
is neither corrosive, nor gaseous, nor neurotic, but
irritant, which leaves the matter much as every village
child knows it.

But how is this poison produced, and why ? Whence
is it distilled, and by what unerring process ? If it is
to protect itself, and not out of sheer cussedness that
the nettle stings, what does it seek protection from ?
Not, as we have seen, from caterpillars ; and if it is a
device to secure immunity from man, it is singularly ill
conceived, because, being a plant of some beauty of
foliage, its offensive properties only serve to bring upon
it persecution, which it might avoid if it were a more
amiable neighbour. And how comes it that the Dead

APKIL 79

Nettles (Lamium album and maculatum), growing in
the selfsame places as the Stinging Nettle, though
belonging to a totally different family of plants, have
sought protection by assuming foliage in close imitation
of that of the Stinging Nettle, and yet have failed to
distil poison from the soil or turn its hairs into sting-
ing tubes ?

XXXV

Of all the mysteries of plant life, none brings us up
with such an imperious 'Halt!' as this power of simula-
tion, of which the Dead Nettle offers such a vegetable
familiar example. The more closely it is M^CT
considered, the further it seems to be from intelligible
explanation. The most salient features and properties
of plants are devised, for the most part, to ensure
reproduction, and especially that degree of cross-ferti-
lisation which is essential to the vigour of the race and
its success in competitive existence. But a few plants
get on better without cross-fertilisation, and ingenious
devices are contrived to guard against it. Sometimes
these devices are simply structural, as in the fig, of
which the flowers are inside what becomes the rind of
the fruit ; but often they show a profoundly intellectual
strategy. The Bee and Fly Orchids, for example,
which, but for the ravages of greedy collectors (Lord !
what a mischievous race they are!), would be much
more commonly seen on English downs than they are,
transact their own fertilisation, and don't want to be
bothered by busy bees and inquisitive flies; so, look

80 VEGETABLE MIMICRY

you, what a cunning plan has been resorted to in order
to secure their privacy. No bee will enter a flower
in which another bee is already at work ; so, to protect
the entrance, the lip of the flower has been enlarged
into a process exactly resembling the business end of a
bee (hi the Fly Orchis it resembles the hind-quarters
of a fly). To the Spider Orchis (Ophrys aranifera),
another British species, it seems to have occurred how
a still more violent shock might be administered to the
nerves of troublesome insect callers, so it displays at its
front door the likeness of a large spider.

Some of us are vain enough to imagine that the
fragrance of flowers was invented for the special grati-
fication of the senses of man, though the true object
seems to be the attraction of insect visitors. The per-
fume is generally agreeable, but by no means always.
Certain plants which covet the presence of carrion-
loving flies emit odours most revolting to human
nostrils. The giant Rafflesia, with flowers fully a yard
in diameter, stinks like putrescent meat, thereby
attracting swarms of flies. The Rafflesia is a tropical
plant; but some forms of Arum, notably Arum
dracunculus and crinitum, which practise a similar
form of deception, may be grown in English gardens.
The last-named is probably the most hideous flower in
existence, for which reason, perhaps, it is seldom seen
in this country. It resembles a gaping wound, lurid
with gangrene, nearly a foot long. The fraud is
thoroughly effective ; I have seen the flowers of Arum
crinitum in my garden just as completely fly-blown as

APRIL 81

if they really had been decaying flesh. The wriggling of
the maggots round the inflorescence (which, as in other
Aroids, rises like a column within the spathe) ensured
communication between the male florets on the upper
part of the spike and the female florets lower down.

An example, still more familiar to everybody in this
country, of deceptive odours emitted to attract flies, is
that of the Stinkhorn Fungus (Phallus impudicus), a
common object in our woods in autumn.

Now how shall we attempt to account for these and
scores of other instances of deliberate deception ?
Plants, so far as we are informed, are destitute of will
or intelligence ; even if they possessed them, it is not
possible to understand how they could modify their
own structure. Yet it is almost equally difficult to
imagine the Kuler of the universe occupying Himself
in imitating some of the humblest of His, creatures,
such as spiders and bees, in order to protect others still
more humble, such as orchids. Equally hard to
imagine Him directing the concoction of disgusting
smells. For some purposes it is to be greatly regretted
that we have abandoned our belief in fairies.

XXXVI

Talking of poisons reminds one of adders, our only
poisonous snake, which, during this month and last,
may have been seen in heathy places, bask- Do y. erg
ing in the spring sunshine ; and the mention swallow
of these recalls a venerable controversy, £]ietlieirYouns?
flames of which have broken out afresh lately. Seven
F

82 DO VIPERS SWALLOW THEIK YOUNG

lustres must have run their course since a good hare, as
old and tough as human credulity, was started in the
columns of the Field, and, lo ! it is running as stoutly
as ever.

'Do vipers swallow their young?' It has been
asserted from a very remote antiquity that they do —
that when danger threatens, the parent snake opens
her mouth, into which the snakelets straightway pass
for shelter in the gullet. Recognised authorities have
ranged themselves on each side in this discussion;
some relying on the abundant evidence of people of
known integrity, who claim to have been eye-witnesses
of the feat; others refusing to be convinced without
ocular and anatomical proof, usually a postulate in
questions of natural science. Admittedly, it is a deli-
cate matter to prove, owing to the very nature of it.
First, you must find your viper; not at this season
though, when vipers are most accessible, but late in
summer, after the young are out. Next, you must
alarm the brood, and watch closely to see if they enter
their parent's mouth. Then (and here comes the really
trying part of it) you must secure the throat of your
viper by tying a piece of string securely round it.
Probably it will be found more convenient to kill your
viper before this stage of the experiment ; but this it
behoves you to do delicately, as if you loved her (which,
if you are a properly constituted human being, you
certainly don't), so as not to derange the internal
anatomy. Lastly, you must be careful never to mislay
the address of Professor Stewart, Curator of the

APRIL 83

College of Surgeons, so that you may despatch your
trophy to him without delay, claim the reward of £5
which was offered many years ago, and is still offered,
by Mr. Tegetmeier, and immortalise yourself by setting
a famous controversy at rest. Nothing short of this
will do. It may seem an excess of scepsis scientifica to
hesitate to accept the testimony of people above sus-
picion of intentional dishonesty or exaggeration, who
declare they have seen the young vipers entering the
mouth of the parent. Nay, more : such persons more
than once have dissected snakes killed after they have
been seen to swallow their young. But, in the first
place, the nerves of anybody suddenly coming upon a
snake usually become somewhat disturbed, which is
unfavourable to cool observation ; and, in the second
place, those who claim to have dissected snakes which
have been seen to swallow their young, seldom know
how to distinguish between the oesophagus and the
oviduct. The presence of live young snakes in the
latter would prove nothing, for that would be the
natural place to expect to find unborn snakelets ; their
presence in the former would be difficult to reconcile
with the action of the gastric juice.

Dr. George Harley has come nearest to an authori-
tative pronouncement on the puzzle. In a letter to the
Field, March 9, 1895, he described how he dissected
on the spot a viper which had been seen to admit its
young into its mouth, and had been killed immediately.
He found the young in the body of the parent, sure
enough, but neither in the stomach nor in the oviduct.

84 THE DIVINING ROD

It was not till he was dissecting a puff-adder in 1863
that he discovered a sac, situated under the lungs, but
nearer the tail, into which he concluded the young
might be received and supplied with the air necessary
for their existence, thus forming a provision somewhat
analogous to the pouch in marsupials. There are only
two unsatisfactory points about this statement by a
man of science; unfortunately, they are destructive
of its value. The first is that the dissection took place
thirty-eight years ago — in 1837 ; the second, that the
viper was thrown away after dissection.

It is ever thus with these wonderful stories. They
are not a bit more surprising than many facts per-
fectly capable of demonstration ; the extraordinary part
about them is that they refuse persistently to be
demonstrated. Till they are demonstrated, one should
not hesitate to refuse credence to them, which is a
very different thing from declaring them to be
impossible.

XXXVII

Another meet subject for eVo^, or philosophic

suspension of judgment, is the claim of certain persons

The to the power of the divining rod. It is not

Divining necessary — indeed, it would be the reverse

of philosophic — to deny the possibility of

such a faculty, belief in which is so venerable and so

widespread. But it is reasonable — nay, it is the only

course consistent with reason — to refuse to believe in

its existence until it has been submitted to proper

APRIL 85

tests. This has never been done, though I was present
some years ago at an elaborate attempt to do so. The
facts were as follows : —

Lord Jersey had employed Mullins, the celebrated
water-finder,1 to discover springs on his property at
Middleton, in Oxfordshire, and had been not only
gratified, but astonished at his success. I ventured,
without questioning Mullins' undoubted skill and
usefulness, to express some doubt as to the part played
by the divining rod. It seemed so much easier to
credit the man with experience and quick powers of
observation, enabling him to detect the presence of
subterranean springs by means of signs invisible to
less practised eyes. That Mullins was an expert was
beyond doubt : dozens of people had reason to be
grateful to him for finding water for them after all
other means had failed. The only question was
whether he was not a bit of a humbug also. It was
determined to invite him to submit to certain simple
tests. He accepted Lord Jersey's invitation to examine
the ground at Osterley Park, near Isleworth, in the
presence of certain persons accustomed to scientific
inquiry. Now in describing what took place, there is
no intention of reflecting unfairly on Mullins' pro-
ceedings, or of imputing to him any intentional dis-
honesty. There may have been a degree of suspicion
in the minds of some of those present ; probably there
was; but Mullins got perfectly fair play, and people
must be left to draw their own conclusions from an

1 Mullins died in the winter of 1894-5.

86 THE DIVINING ROD

accurate report of the proceedings and their result in
the only serious attempt on record to test the virtues
of the divining rod.

Mullins arrived at Osterley in the forenoon. He was
at perfect liberty to go about and inspect the field of
operations, and I think I remember being told he had
done so. After luncheon he presented himself to the
visitors and set to work. Sir James Crichton-Browne
took command of the inspecting staff. Mullins, having
a supply of light, forked hazel rods, rather thicker than
an ordinary drawing-pencil, and about a foot or fifteen
inches long, seized one of them with a prong in each
hand, and began to move about with the point of the
rod about a foot above the surface of the ground. At
two places on the gravel sweep in front of the house
the rod turned up, Mullins stopped, and told us that
a spring would be found at those points. The same
happened at more than one place in the park, where
the surface was grassy. He showed us how the rod
twisted so violently that, when he held it tight, it
broke in his hand. Asked what his sensations were,
he replied that when the rod turned up he felt a ' kind
of a shivering ' passing upwards along his spine. He
stood on a plate of thick glass, and explained to us
that the rod then gave no sign, which, in his view,
showed that the influence was electricity. Sir James
then proposed that Mullins should go through his
performance blindfold, to which the operator made
no objection. A large handkerchief was tied over his
eyes, and he made ready to begin again.

APRIL 87

' I don't call that blindfolding at all ! ' cried Sir James,
and produced some cotton-wool, which he proposed
to stuff under the handkerchief; upon which Mullins
tore off the handkerchief, vowed that he had practised
his profession for thirty years without once having had
his honesty called in question, and would not submit
to have it doubted now.

' Don't you believe my word ? ' said he.

' I believe nothing but what I see ! ' returned Sir
James, — a sentiment which, though it precisely defined
the proper mental attitude of a scientific critic, brought
the seance to an abrupt conclusion; for Mullins, so
deeply wounded in his self-respect, refused to undertake
any further experiments.

The question, therefore, so far as we were concerned,
remained exactly where it was when we took it up.
Personally, I disbelieve in the rod except as a irdpepyov,
but I suspect that some people are abnormally affected
by the vicinity of water, just as others are by that of
a cat. Were I in, straits to find water, I should employ
without hesitation a professional water- finder — rod and
all — if there remains one so successful as Mullins was.

XXXVIII

To return for a moment to the subject of snakes — it
is well known that their poison is rendered more potent
by hot weather. The only instance of fatal
results from the bite of an adder which has
ever come under my notice happened after three weeks
of intense heat in July 1876. Four Scottish Militia

88 SPRING FLOWEES

regiments were brigaded in camp at Holmwood, near
Dorking, during the summer manoeuvres. A bicyclist,
who had come down from London to see the troops,
was bitten by an adder in the heather, and died in a
few hours.

Even adders are not without their services to man.
During the great plague of field-voles in Scotland in
1891-2, the only adder I happened to see killed had a
full-sized vole in its gullet.

XXXIX

Few of us make enough of our gardens in spring.
We have trained our gardeners to conform to the

spring vicious habit which draws people to the town

Flowers during the first acts of Nature's annual opera,
and to concentrate all their skill and ingenuity on a
display of colour in autumn. Everybody admits that
spring flowers are the sweetest, the purest, and the
prettiest, but it is a rare thing to see much trouble
bestowed upon them. But a visit during this month
to Mr. George Wilson's garden at Wisley, near Wey-
bridge, would open most people's eyes to the brilliant
effect that these can be made to produce.

A garden in the strict sense it can scarcely be
termed ; rather it is a champfleuri — a field of flowers.
It is a piece of land wherein an owner, being as much
botanist as gardener, has collected from all parts of the
world the fairest flowers that are patient of our climate,
there to test, to multiply, and display them. The
ground chosen, some nine acres in extent, includes a

APRIL 89

hillside, an oakwood at the foot, and a couple of level
fields beyond. Water-loving plants have been accom-
modated by the excavation of two or three ponds in
the gravel, and in this month the surface of one of
these is closely studded with white blossoms of the
Cape pondweed (Aponogeton distachyon), and the air
is loaded with their perfume of mingled hawthorn and
bitter almonds. But it is in the wood that, at this
season, the choicest flowers are to be found ; charming
surprises abound there at every turn of the narrow
tracks ; for there delicate petals may expand without
risk of searing wind, and the sunshine is filtered gently
through the bare oak boughs. There are glades of
narcissus, not only the common English daffodil, dear
to Herrick and Wordsworth (than which none can be
more perfect), but also the many forms into which it
has sported, as well as distinct species, such as bicolor,
with golden tube and broad creamy sepals, and its
grander variety, Horsfieldii ; pallid, nodding cernuus]
graceful incomparabilis in many shades, and its double
form, ' butter-and-eggs ' ; the quaint bulbocodium, or
hoop petticoat, golden or primrose-hued ; the delicate
cyclamineus, with sepals smartly reflexed ; and, rarest
of all, the tiny minimus, ' whose nose,' saith Parkinson,
' doth mostly rest upon the ground.' All these gain a
degree of grace in this woodland, which those who have
seen them only in formal borders can scarcely realise.

Then there are sheets of anemones — not only our
native wood species, with white or flushed flowers, but
its near relative, equally hardy and profuse in bloom,

90 SPEING FLOWERS

the skyblue appenina, and Robinsoni with bronzy
foliage and petals of delicate lavender hue. In sunny
spots the intensely scarlet Anemone fulgens is as much
at home as in any oliveyard on the Mediterranean;
and, most remarkable of all, a variety of our native
Pasque flower, A. pulsatilla patens, with long silky
hairs on its leaves and bracts, giving it a strange old-
world look.

Advantage has been taken of every ditch in the
wood — ditches ! they are but woodland gutters — and
thousands of squills, hepaticas, hellebores, saxifrages,
grape - hyacinths, and primroses gleam among the
withered leaves like living jewellery. In making men-
tion of the last, the Wonder of Wisley is touched on ;
for here are not merely

' pale primroses

That die unmarried ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength,'

but primroses of hues never before beheld in that
modest flower. Blue roses, the type of unpractical
quest, have yet to be disclosed ; but by sedulous selec-
tion of seed-parents, Mr. Wilson has succeeded in pro-
ducing lusty clumps of primroses bearing flowers, not
only of cramoisie, cinnabar red, and royal purple, but
of veritable blue. When, a few years ago, these flowers
were first exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Show,
the Committee looked askance on them; the plants,
they suspected, had been doctored with mineral solu-
tion; but inquiry only proved that the strain was
really and incorrigibly blue.

APEIL 91

One question must occur to everybody who visits
this wilderness — How comes it, seeing there is such
abundant variety to choose from, that most gardens
and shrubberies present such monotony in their
furnishing? Here is one plant, for instance, Daphne
Blagayana, covered with ivory-white rosettes of
exquisite fragrance, evergreen, shapely, and withal as
hardy as a box-bush, which one would expect to be a
general favourite, yet you shall look for it in vain in
ninety-nine hundred gardens out of a thousand. How
many ladies who really take pains about their borders
are acquainted with the lovely little ground - laurel
(Epigcea repens), the chosen badge of Nova Scotia, or
the quaint, oak-leaved avens (Dryas octopetala), sheet-
ing the banks with dark-green foliage and gay white
flowers? The Canadian 'puccoon' or blood-root
(Sanguinaria canadensis) far exceeds the snowdrop
in lustrous white, and is quite as easily naturalised ;
while for matchless blue consider the Himalayan
Tecophikea cyanocrocus.

XL

It is impossible for any sober citizen to write or read
about gardening without breaking his shins over the
preposterous polysyllables in use to designate Barbarous
those plants which have not acquired popular plant names
English names. Generic and specific terms are
necessary, of course, for scientific classification; and
Latin, even as pronounced in this, as in no other land,
is unrivalled as a medium combining elegance and pre-

92 BARBAROUS PLANT NAMES

cision. But it is time to enter a mild protest against
the intemperate use by botanists of the speech of
Imperial Rome. The difficulty of ticketing with dis-
tinctive names the ever-increasing horde of herbs must
be enormous; still, that is no reason for ignoring the
beauty of the language and obscuring its succinct pre-
cision. An old Scotch gardener once confessed to the
difficulty which this nomenclature added to his voca-
tion. Asked whether he did not find it hard to teach
his apprentices the long learned names : — ' I do that,'
replied he; 'and — fac' — I couldna teach them ava'
withoot my memoria technica.' Asked further to
give an example of that : ' Weel,' said he, ' see there ;
yon 's what they ca' a Cryptomeria japonica ; " Noo,"
says I to the lads, " when ye want to mind the name
o' yon tree, just think o' Creep-to-the-mear-and-jump-
onto-her." '

Even this worthy's system would have been sorely
taxed in respect of a beautiful but unfortunate lily
which was exhibited at a London show some years ago,
suffering from the pundits as wofully as Susannah did
at the hands of her elders ; for there was bound to her
feet the excruciating title — Lilium umbellatum Thun-
bergianum bulbiferum nigro-maculatum. Compare
with this mouthing the scholarly simplicity of Linnaeus,
who, having to fix a scientific title for the English oak,
dubbed it once and for ever Quercus robur — oak of
oaks. On the other hand, when he presumed to attach
a personal name to a plant, he sought out a simple
little trailing herb — a solitary species, native of his

APRIL 93

own northern woods — and wedded his own to it for
ever — Linncea borealis. It became his lasting cog-
nisance, and inseparably associated with his touching
motto, Tantus amor florum — so deep is my passion
for flowers.

What is required of floral nomenclature is not that
it should commemorate some defunct, inglorious biped
(for there arise not many Linnaeus in an aeon), nor yet
that it should serve merely to mark the labels in a
herbarium. The titles should express the origin, chief
qualities, or points of difference of genera and species,
with ail the precision and melody of the Latin tongue.
Take the beautiful family of Iris as an instance: the
two native species are satisfactorily named, the common
yellow flag being known as Iris pseudacorus, that is,
the flag-like iris ; and the gladdon or wood iris as Iris
fcetidissima — the stinking iris, a title fairly earned by
the evil odour of the leaves. But when I take up a
list of new species of Iris from the East, the first to
catch the eye is one described as having ' long grassy
foliage and pale sulphur flowers,' surely hardly sufficient
reason for naming it Iris Grant-Duffil To another
species from the Holy Land has been assigned a title
from a higher source than an ex-Governor of Madras,
for it is prettily called Iris Marice ; and a third, from
the same country, seems to have been rescued from the
terrible name of Iris Bismarckiana, for it is now to be
distinguished as Nazariensis. That is fitting enough ;
but fresh horrors lie in wait over the page, for here is a
lovely species ' with large, white flowers, and a beautiful

94 BARBAROUS PLANT NAMES

butterfly-like blotch on tlie falls/ and what think you
the learned folk have invented for it? It has been
christened Iris Robinsoni I These homely English
patronymics offer a serious obstacle to those who love
to commemorate their affection for the departed by
flowers which return year by year. It must be seldom
that a modern Bion shall find a Moschus to marshal
sweet mourners at his bier —

' Ye flowers, sigh forth your odours with red buds ;
Flush deep ye roses and anemones ;
And more than ever now, 0 hyacinth, show
Your written sorrows — the sweet singer 's dead.'

To find one of the congeners of Robinson we need
only turn to the list of lilies ; and who the deuce was
Brown ? we murmur pettishly, that he should make a
godchild of the noble Lilium Browni, with its purple
trumpets, lined with white satin. Lilies on the whole
have fared better than other plants when names were
served out; for here are tigrinum and pardalinum,
the tiger and leopard lilies, in gorgeous livery of orange
and sable. Yet a recent importation from Mexico,
described as ' one of the most beautiful of all/ has to
carry a barbarous barrow-load of polysyllables — Lilium
Bloomerianum magnificum.

Daffodils (let alone the florist's varieties) come fairly
well out of it. Narcissus bicolor, odorus, jonquilla,
were so called of old, hi the good days of Gerarde and
Parkinson, and their names mingle prettily with memo-
ries of March winds and suns. Poeticus, too, the
exquisite pheasant-eye narcissus, latest to flower, brings

APRIL 95

to mind the deep orchard grass of May, when the
apple-trees shed their bloom. But honour might have
been paid less clumsily to that excellent florist, the late
Mr. Leeds of Manchester, than by naming the eucharis-
flowered daffodil after him Narcissus Leedsi.

Is it not mischievous that anybody should have been
allowed to fix on a delicate lavender crocus the stigma of
Crocus Thomassi ? Such a barbarous name never came
out of the same satchel as the Greek one of Chionodoxa
— winter grace — for an early flowering bulb with thyrses
of porcelain blue, or Amaryllis belladonna for the way-
ward Jersey lily. But the witless loons have tainted
this list also ; for here behold a newer kind advertised
as Amaryllis Johnsoni — a name recalling the fact that,
in all his writings and recorded sayings, Dr. Johnson
hardly makes the most transient allusion to flowers of
any kind.

The name of Hooker has been so conspicuous for two
generations in plant lore, that it were ungenerous to
carp at its frequent use as a specific title. Unluckily,
it is not musical, and the handsome yellow African
lily- wort suffers under the uncouth designation Bulbi-
nella (formerly Chrysobactron) Hookeri.

Descriptive plant-names are sometimes very happy.
Information could hardly be more concisely conveyed
than by such a name as Dictamnus fraxinella, the
ash-leaved dittany. Gladiolus (gladiolus, ma'am, not
gladiolus, as some use, nor gladiolus, as others) is
perfect — the little sword-bearer; it exactly describes
the foliage. But what sense can man discern in the

96 BARBAEOUS PLANT NAMES

name given to a nearly allied lily- wort — Watsonial
Commemorative names are seldom pleasant to use till
all has been forgotten about those whom they com-
memorate, as Fuchsia and Dahlia; though exception
may be made for the pardonable fervour which, while
it inspired our countrymen to name the greatest of
conifers Wellingtonia, has induced American botanists
to class it as Washingtonia. But, after all, the best
names, even for scientific precision, are those invented
by the poets, as Anemone, the wind-flower, Agapanthus,
the love-blossom, and the like.

With the fleeting names that gardeners choose to
give florist's flowers there is no cause for quarrel.
These may be dismissed as lightly as flowers of this
sort were dismissed by Perdita : —

' Carnations and streaked gilliflowers,
Which some call nature's bastards ; of that kind
Our rustick garden 's barren, and I care not

To get slips of them

I '11 not put

The dibble in the earth to set one slip of them ;
No more than, were I painted, I would wish
This youth should say 'twere well ; and only therefore
Desire to breed by me.'

It matters not though a rose should come to be
named Dr. Tanner, or a pseony Tim Healy, even as
a rhododendron has already been ticketed W. E.
Gladstone.

Yet there lies a fine old-world light upon some
names in the florist's catalogues, reflected from the
days when men paid a knight's ransom for a single

APRIL 97

tulip bulb. Of such are Grootvoorst, Pottebakker, and
Keizerkroon. One may even stomach Apotheker Bogren,
whereby a handsome hellebore is distinguished. But
the French are happiest in their florist's names.
Among the white hyacinths are such pretty titles as
La Belle Blanchisseuse, La Pucelle d' Orleans, and Paix
de I'Europe. The blue Hyacinth, Lord Wellington,
must surely have been christened in France, in hopes
of attracting English customers; but a certain deep
red one rejoices in two names, one — Waterloo — bestowed
by the vengeful Teuton, the other (for the French
market) — Bouquet tendre. Among the tulips poetic
sensibility may be traced in Mariage de ma fille, Belle
Alliance, and Roi cramoisi ; while our people limp
along with Purple Crown and Yellow Prince.

XLI

OF all the trees in the wood, none is so prudent as the
ash ; none that stays itself against the storm with such

far-reaching roots, or probes such distant

The ^ ° __ r

Prudent soil for nourishment ; none that, in the vital

matter of putting forth leaves, is so fearful

of encountering a backward blast of winter. Tennyson

taunted this tree for its laggardliness : ' Why lingereth

she ' the beautiful passage is already threadbare;

and each spring one yields to fresh impatience when
the woodland is all in new green, save for the frosty
ash-boughs.

Yet there is often seasonable reminder that nine-
tenths of our park trees are foreigners, too easily lured
into leaf by treacherous 'bask' days in March and
tepid April showers ; not seldom have limes and horse-
chestnuts to pay for their temerity in foliage bruised
and blackened by the broken promise of May. The
birch, indeed, is as early as these, and escapes damage
in virtue of wiry sprays and small leaves ; but woe to
the broad-leafed exotic that puts faith in the tricksome
north-country spring ! Herein is shown the wise con-
stancy of the ash and oak, which, with the wych-elm

MAY 99

the aspen, and the Scots fir, made up the staple of the
primitive British forest.

It is the ash which, more than any other tree, dis-
tinguishes the landscape of the northern half of this
island from that of the southern. Somewhere within
the confines of Staffordshire, one travelling on the
London and North- Western line passes out of the zone
of oak and elm into that of ash and sycamore. In
place of the heavy-headed elms (like the sycamore, an
importation in Roman times) that cluster round home-
steads of the Midlands, the northern garths are circled
round by ash-trees, melancholy enough at this present
time of writing ; but so soon as the gates of the east
wind shall be shut till another spring, to be clothed
upon with such gracious foliage as to justify the meed
given by Virgil to this above other trees.1

Never in the history of Scottish seasons was there
more signal example of the merit of late leafing as in
that of 1894. There was much heat at Eastertide.
Grass shot up ankle deep in sheltered leas ; hawthorn
hedges decked themselves with green lace ; and precious
finery of all kinds was flaunted in garden and shrubbery.
Yet among all this rush of verdure, the grey ash-trees
and the brown heather alone made no sign : schooled
to useful patience by immemorial experience of northern
springs, their stirring sap gave no outward token of life.

And now, to-day, this 22nd of May, may be seen
the right reason for their backwardness. The strong
north wind — the very breath, as it were, of a vast ice-

1 Fraxinus in sylvis pnlcherrimn.

100 WESTLAND MAY

field — which, for a week past, has been rattling at our
casements, fell to rest last night; and the mercury fell
also to ten degrees Fahrenheit. TAventy-two degrees
of frost on the twenty-second day of May ! The ruin
has been heartrending ; even hardy beech and hawthorn
have been seared as by a flame.

XLII

There is not much temptation to go out among this
wreck of fair things ; but the Whitsun short holidays

westiand en(^ to-morrow, and no precious fragment
"ay of them must be squandered within houses
built with hands. This is only make-believe winter
after all ; there must be places where the cold cannot
come. Clearly, the best of these will be one of those
narrow, deep glens — they would be called combes in
the south country — which seam the coast of Galloway
throughout its many windings. There is one such glen
close at hand — Physgil Glen, they call it; what wind
there is blows off the land ; so there, if anywhere, may
foretaste of summer be had.

The glen is thickly wooded — with ash, it is true, so
there is no leaf-canopy now; but beneath the grey
stems the steep banks and the level spots beside
the burn are covered with a dense tapestry of wood-
hyacinths. Do not call them bluebells, dear Miss
Sassenach ! Our country-people call them, unmusically,
' craw-taes ' ; but, as all the world ought to know,
though it does not, the ' bluebells of Scotland ' are not
these, but the summer flowers which you choose to call

MAY 101

harebells. Hyacinths, then, in sheets and streaks, in
clumps and scatterment, of soft, exquisite blue, with
just enough heads of pure white among them to make
one grateful that these are the exception, else would
there be lost one of the most lavish displays of rare
colour that Nature ever allows herself. It is a scene
never to be forgotten — those fairy banks, enamelled
with acres of azure among the grey ash-stems, with
bright green fern-fronds springing, and dog's mercury
of more sober tone. And, lo ! to add the last touch
of enchantment, the clouds roll aside, and the sun pours
down his splendour through the tracery of green
boughs overhead. It makes one long to bring a shoal
of city school children here, and turn them adrift
among the flowers.

Towards the sea, the trees shrink in stature, till, on
the outmost verge of the wood, they are queer pigmies,
no higher than the enclosing dyke of grey stone.
Every leaf and twig that pushes higher is shorn off' by
the salt sea wind. Beyond the wood the glen sinks
deeper, with steeper sides, and the floral decoration
changes. There are still patches of blue hyacinths
here and there under the lee of blackthorn brake and
whins, but the knolls are spread with the lighter, greyer
blue of the starry vernal squill — a relative of the
hyacinth, but of humbler growth and much more rare.
The blackthorn is out of flower, and the fire of the
gorsebloom is sinking into embers, but each stunted
hawthorn is breaking into creamy spray, and far and
wide, high and low, thousands of pale primroses be-

102 WESTLAND MAY

spangle the turf. On lower banks, near the stream,
the clusters grow thicker, till, in yielding place to the
golden marsh marigolds, they strike the harmony of
sulphur and orange, so dear to the dead Albert Moore,
There is another and purer yellow on the heights,
a middle hue between primrose and marigold, the
pretty rock-rose (Helianthemum), wreathed among
masses of the snowy bladder campion, and, thinly
scattered over all, there stand little pillars of brilliant
purplish crimson — the early orchis. Just where the
green turf carpet ends on the beach, between it and the
broad expanse of cold shingle, all these hues meet and
mingle, and there is added a wide selvage of a colour
gayer than all the rest, the dainty rose-pink of the
sea-thrift. To sit on the thyme-scented cliff before the
quiet sea, to bask in the afternoon rays and drink in
this oratorio of colour, is a joy to be had in everlasting
remembrance.

And when that is done, there be other things to note
in this quiet bay. It is just such a beach as this that
the Vikings loved to draw their long black kyuls upon.
The very name of the place — Physgil — is our tortured
writing of the Norse fisk-gil, fish stream ; and on an
eminence commanding the landing-place moulder the
ruins of Port Castle, one of the innumerable strongholds
with which these cruel scourges of the ninth and tenth
centuries studded our shores, for the better subduing
of the native Picts.

But memories of a still earlier age hang round this
spot. On either hand the bay is closed in by lofty

MAY 103

cliffs. In the more northerly of these is a celebrated
cave, which, ever since the fourth century of our era,
has borne the name of Ninian, who first preached the
gospel of the 'White Christ' to the wild Picts of
Galloway. All through the subsequent interval of
paganism, and, stranger still, in spite of the harsh
repudiation of sacred legends and rites by the Scottish
Reformers, the Saint's name has clung to this rift in the
rocks, whither, in pious imitation of his famous patron,
St. Martin of Tours, he was wont to retire for seasons of
fasting and prayer. A few years ago some diligent
local antiquaries, having cleared the cavern of hundreds
of tons of debris, brought to light many carved crosses,
inscriptions, and other objects corroborating the legend.
There is a wide view seaward. The wavy outline of
the Isle of Man fills the horizon towards the south ;
opposite, in the west, the long, lean finger of the Mull
of Galloway, southmost point of Scotland, lies along the
sea ; and, farther off and to the south, Ireland may be
made out, if not elsewhere, at least in Slieve Donard,
highest of the mountains of Mourne. But the clouds
are heaped heaviest over that land.

XLIII

How often one is tempted to echo Horace Wai-
pole's purposely peevish snarl about English weather.
' Every year,' he wrote to Mason, ' we give
ourselves airs of being disappointed, though shire Trout
it is so very seldom we have any fine
weather. I believe, if we did not read Virgil at

104 A HAMPSHIRE TROUT STREAM

school, we should never have invented names for the
seasons.'

Of all the myriad poets of spring, none has ever
given its character in these islands so faithfully as
Arthur Clough in the lines beginning —

* Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane.'

One should make a point of reading them every year
on May Day, so as to understand and enjoy the design
of the season ; but it is a salutary rule to abstain from
quotation, especially just now, when every living creature
is astir, and far too busy to listen to one.

This is another month of May from the one I have
just been prosing about ; a year later — 1895 — and with
the fearful experience of last winter behind us. Spring
has come at last, backward, it is true, but already lavish
in beauty of leaf and flower. The grass in meadows
beside this Hampshire stream is not more than ankle-
deep yet, but it is already embroidered with royal gold
of kingcups and wan lavender of lady's smock. It is
interesting to analyse the components of the rich green
tapestry of the river banks. It is not all grass that
serves for the general ground of malachite, which would
be criard were it not shot with myrtle green of mari-
gold leaves and olive green of creeping jenny, pointille
(as heralds would say) with pink buds of marsh valerian,
shadowed with rush clumps of rifle-green, and variegated
with the brown flowering spikes of sedge. When the
herbage grows taller all this is changed; the effect
remains soft and satisfying, but nothing equals in rich-
ness the pile of this spring carpet.

MAY 105

What abundant life there is in this meadow beside
the lucid Itchen ! Most living things in the water and
on the land are making honeymoon; only the trout,
cold-blooded creatures, having transacted matrimony
during the long winter nights, are free to cruise about
with no more sentimental aim than to fill their
stomachs ! Dabchicks, coots, water-hens, wild-ducks,
and water-rats are intent on far more tender cares. A
pair of great spotted woodpeckers are enlarging the
premises they occupied last year in the dead branch of
a poplar. On the trellised wall of the fishing-cottage a
pair of chaffinches are putting the finishing touches to
their new nest, a masterpiece of art tapestry. It is
within a few feet of the old one, which, after the young
brood fledged out of it last June, a pair of spotted fly-
catchers faked up into a receptacle for their eggs.
These, being among the latest of our summer migrants
to arrive, have not much time to spend on the niceties
of architecture, and often are content to use second-
hand furniture.

XLIV

This is a favourable time for noosing basking pike
out of the backwaters of our trout-stream, and the
miller is a great adept at this game. It is p^ ^^
really a very delicate art, especially when the Black Bass
fish are small. Eighteen baby jack taken with fine
wire one morning near Itchen Abbas weighed no more
than nineteen ounces. I have never seen a trout

106 PIKE AND BLACK BASS

caught by this means, and I believe it to be hardly
possible to do so.

It has never been decided, I believe, whether the too
common pike is an indigenous fish in British waters,
or whether it has been introduced artificially. Probably
it is a native, but its unwelcome presence in many lakes
and streams is certainly owing to its cultivation in
monkish times. Its fecundity and rapid growth made
the pike valuable in providing a steady supply of fish
for Fridays and other fasts; but, all assertion to the
contrary notwithstanding, it affords unpalatable, or at
best, insipid food. Colonel Thornton, whose amusing
Sporting Tour formed the subject of one of Sir Walter
(or as he then was — Mr. Walter) Scott's earliest and
most scathing contributions to the Edinburgh Revieiv,
wrote enthusiastically of the excellence of Highland
pike on the table ; but the utmost that ordinary culin-
ary cunning can do is to make this fish a neutral
vehicle for savoury stuffing and toothsome sauce. The
injury done to trout waters in all parts of this kingdom
by the presence of this pirate is incalculable. Once
let it get entry to any water, and the pest is ineradi-
cable. You may run your lake dry and leave it so for
a year ; let there be but a puddle left a couple of inches
deep, or a reedy ditch communicating with the lake
— in these will pikelets harbour, and, as soon as the
water is restored, begin reproduction with malignant
diligence.

It has been long the dream of anglers to find some
fish able to swim with the pike on equal terms, but of

MAY 107

higher gastronomic quality, and affording more exciting
sport. It is true that many people delight in pulling
out pike, and in southern waters they become almost as
wary as trout, and take a lot of catching. But it is
dispiriting to basket fish that no one will thank you for
bringing home. Gimp, too, is essential, for the pike's
teeth are fatal even to the strongest salmon gut ; and
the chivalry of the struggle is all on one side when the
angler knows that he may haul on his tackle as hard as
he likes without risk of fracture.

The accounts brought to this country of sport with
black bass in North American waters prompted the
experiment of naturalising them on this side of the
Atlantic. They are fish of the perch tribe, armed with
the characteristic spiny dorsal fin, exceedingly active
and voracious, and producing flesh said to resemble
that of the haddock. They are more powerful and
grow far larger than our perch, which is the only British
fish able to live on nearly equal terms in enclosed waters
with pike ; and, as a sporting fish, the black bass is said
to be no whit inferior to trout, though accounts differ
as to their readiness to rise at the fly. Most of those
taken, it is believed, come at a spinning bait.

Black bass have been established for some years at
Lord Exeter's ponds at Burghley, and in 1892 it was
decided to introduce them into Scottish waters. In
the spring of that year a pond about one hundred and
fifty yards long was cleaned out for their reception and
left dry during the summer. The bottom was well
limed to destroy, as far as possible, every vestige of eels

108 PIKE AND BLACK BASS

and other fish, and the water was run back in Sep-
tember. In November a consignment of one hundred
yearling bass was received from Germany, where these
fish are artificially reared. They measured from three
to four inches long, and only one out of the hundred
had died on the long journey.

The pond was drawn in April 1895. The net was
not satisfactory; it had no bottom leads and no end
poles, so the catching of fish was extremely pro-
blematical. The first haul produced nothing but two
fine trout, which had no business to be there. They
must have harboured as fry in the rivulet which feeds
the pond, while the latter was dry, and must, therefore,
have been the same age as the bass. The second haul
was more successful. In spite of numerous entangle-
ments with snags and stones, which deranged the net
so that any fish of ordinary intelligence might have
swum under it, six bass in lusty condition, with fine
olive-green backs and white bellies, were drawn ashore.
They were not large — not of a size to be risked in the
lake they are destined to populate, which swarms with
pike. They weighed little more than half a pound
a piece, or not more than half the weight of the trout,
their equals in age. Still, there they were, having
escaped all dangers from cormorants, herons, and, still
more deadly, eels.

A year later, in April 1896, we drew the pond again,
and this time many trout and seven bass were drawn
to land. But it was disappointing to find that, while
the trout averaged over a pound, the bass had not

MAY 109

increased perceptibly in size since the previous year.
However, they were transferred to the lake, to take
their chance among the pike, where it is more than
doubtful if they are ever heard of again. If once they
could be established in the water, and if their reputa-
tion for voracity is well founded, they may be expected
not only to hold their own with pike, but actually to
dimmish their numbers by devouring the fry. But it
must be confessed that their rate of growth — half or
three-quarters of a pound at five years old — is very
disappointing.

The annexed plate is reproduced from a painting
by Pollard, showing how our forefathers went about
the capture of pike in the good old leisurely time.
There is a vast deal of unconscious humour in the
scene : the elaborate paraphernalia, including a stool
for the angler to sit on, the enormous rods, the baskets,
bags, and bait-cans, above all, the chimney-pot hats,
chokers, and cut-throat collars, seem ludicrously out
of proportion to the undersized jack which the princi-
pal sportsman is towing within reach of the powerful
gaff. In those days, the ceremonial costume which
modern practice only insists on for the hunting field,
was looked on as indispensable to all field sports;
peradventure some of us may live to hear young men
laughing at the unwritten law which, in the nineteenth
century, enforced the wearing of white breeches and
tall hats by all who would worthily pursue the fox.

110 OLD ENGLISH FLOWER NAMES

XLV

Not many years ago, May was the most flowerless
of all the months of spring or summer in English
old En lish country-h°use gardens, until a happy caprice

Flower once more brought into favour the plants
with which our forefathers were content to
deck their parterres. The borders which, under the
' bedding-out ' system, lay bare all winter and spring,
waiting till the temperature permitted the tender
plants to be put in the ground, are now allowed to bear
the full procession of the sweetest flowers of the season,
and great is the gain in variety and interest. There
is good cause for throwing up of hats, or any other
decorous act of jubilation, on account of the disfavour
which has fallen upon scarlet geraniums, yellow
calceolarias, and blue lobelias. People tired of these,
not because they lacked brilliancy or beauty, but
because everybody had them, and because they only
flowered for a few weeks in late summer and autumn,
and left naked, brown beds for all our solace during
the rest of the year. ' La vertu est une triste chose,
car elle ne laisse point de souvenirs,' and so it was with
bedding out, It may be that generations yet unborn
may revert to it, and prize it for its associations with
the Victorian age, hallowed by memories of the intro-
duction of battues, crinolines, croquet, diners a la
Russe, and other cherished institutions. Meanwhile,
we part from it without a sigh ; our only wish is that
it would disappear a little faster.

It was only a few weeks ago that I stood, for the

MAY 111

first time, on a lovely spring morning, in the celebrated
Italian garden of Diane de Poitiers at Chenonceaux.
Never was there a more dreary rectangle ! So far from
being a place of flowers, it seemed to be a space from
which every blossoming thing had been laboriously
expunged. True, that in a couple of months there
would be a fine blaze of red, blue, and yellow ; but what
memories could that fleeting display waken of the
sweet, naughty ladies who paced here in the days of
Brantome and Ronsard? Whereas one great charm
of the old class of ' herbaceous stuff/ as gardeners con-
temptuously called it but a few summers ago, lies in
their permanence. Many are not only technically
perennial, in the sense of not having to be resown
annually, but seem even to have the property of per-
petual youth. In many an old English garden there
are vigorous clumps of scarlet lychnis or fragrant
dittany coeval with mighty oaks in the park outside ;
and a girl may gather a posy to-day from the self-same
tuft on which another of her kin dropped tears as she
thought of lover or husband riding with Falkland at
Newbury or Rupert at Marston Moor.

But another secret of our affection for old-fashioned
flowers is contained in their old-fashioned names, of
which some are no more than homely, but others are
full of tender or plaintive meaning. Some flowers have
titles of both qualities ; that, for instance, now known
to everybody as forget-me-not, though Gerarde and the
old herbalists called it scorpion-grass, because in its
spike of unopened buds could be traced a resemblance

112 OLD ENGLISH FLOWER NAMES

to a scorpion's tail. This was quite enough, according
to the doctrine of signatures, to ensure its prescription
as a remedy for the bite of a scorpion. Gerarde was
far too good a man of science to endorse the empirics,
though he always quotes their writings, and leaves his
readers to form their own opinion on the credibility
of them. In this instance he cites Dioscorides, 'that
the leaues of Scorpion grass applyed to the place, are
a present remedy against the stinging of Scorpions:
and likewise boyled in wine and drunke, preuaile
against the said bitings, as also of addars, snakes, and
such venomous beasts.' Should any of my readers
unluckily be bitten by a scorpion, and this remedy
either fail or not be at hand, he may fall back on that
prescribed by Jonston in his History of the Wonderful
Things in Nature, written a century later than Gerarde's
Herball, which is just as likely to prove efficacious:
namely — 'if he (the person bitten) sit upon an Asse
with his face toward the tayl, the Asse will endure
the pain and not he.'

Another old name for the scorpion grass, with its
' floures of a light blew or watchet colour, with a spot
of yellow among the blew/ is mouse-ear, owing to
the shape of its leaves, a fancy perpetuated in the
scientific title — Myosotis. But the present popular
name has not belonged to this pretty blue flower for
much more than half a century. Somewhere in the
'twenties a ballad was written connecting it with the
story of a drowned lover ; but up to that time forget-
me-not had been the name of one of the bugles,

MAY 113

which leaves a disagreeable bitter taste in the mouth
when bitten.

No flower has a greater wealth of alias than the
pansy. Oberon explains its colour : —

' Yet marked I where the dart of Cupid fell ;
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.'

Note, however, that this does not mean love in in-
dolence; love-in-idleness, more commonly love-in-idle,
means love-in-vain — hopeless love, as in the Pardoner's

Tale:—

* The other heste of hym is this,
Take not in ydel my name nor arnys.'

Spenser calls this flower the pawnee, and Dr. Prior
enumerates the following names for it — herb Trinity,
three-faces-under-a-hood, fancy, flamy, kiss-me-ere-I-
rise, jump-up-and-kiss-me, pink-of-my-John, and others
such as fond lovers use. With all these to choose from,
it seems rather unfair that this spoiled darling should
have been allowed to filch the name 'heartsease,'
which the wallflower had already earned in virtue of
its cordial properties, and imported into it some of that
amatory allusion in which the profligate pansy is so
deeply involved.

But from the earliest times lovers have been incor-
rigible in appropriating blossoms to their own purposes,
though some of the resulting names have been the
consequence of blunders. For instance, it is hardly
likely that any swain would choose the coarse annual
called love-lies-bleeding to express his pain ; there
II

114 OLD ENGLISH FLOWER NAMES

has been some confusion here between the classical
amaranthus and amor. So also the Solanum lycoper-
sicum, named pomi del Mori or Saracen apples by
Italian gardeners, was glossed pommes d'amour by the
French, and love-apples by our own people, till these
borrowed the American name ' tomato.' The straggling
goose-grass, too, clinging with its myriad burrs to the
coats of men, derives its popular name, loveman, from
that habit, and not from any amatory suggestion.

School Boards and other engines of mealy-mouthed-
ness have laid their ban on many venerable plant-
names, and it must be owned that the true meaning
of wake-robin and cuckoo-pint is best exchanged for
the general suggestion of vernal growth with which
they invest the common hedge arum. The spotted
orchis —

' long purples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them '—

seems to have lost all but the last of these titles ; and
it is not difficult to foresee that before long the linger of
the Inquisition will be laid upon the common name of
the meadow saffron, called 'naked ladies/ when its pink
flowers rise shivering without leaves from the mould in
autumn days. But never let ' our cold maids ' blush to
welcome Cardamine pratense as Lady's-smock ; for the
reference herein, and in other names such as the Lady's-
mantle (Swedish ' Mariekapa '), is to ' Our Lady.'

Names designed for one plant often get transferred
to another. Thus woodbine and honeysuckle are

MAY 115

modern synonyms for the same climber ; but Parkin-
son, no mean authority, spoke of red clover as honey-
suckle. Canon Ellaconibe, in the first edition of Plant
Lore of Shakespeare, interpreted woodbine, which doth
' the sweet honeysuckle gently entwist,' as bittersweet
or deadly nightshade ; but, doubtless for good reason,
he changed it in the second, explaining that honeysuckle
was the flower and woodbine the tendril. I have heard
it maintained that eglantine was a name for honey-
suckle, but this is to forget its etymology — the aiglante
or prickly one — the sweetbriar. There is another
flower which has two names so equal in merit that one
hesitates which to use — London pride or none-so-
pretty (Saxifraga utnbrosa).

Fair-maids-of-France is a title all too sweet for the
double buttercup, to which usage assigns it — a plant
not worth cultivating, save for its poetic name ; but its
white counterpart — bachelor's buttons — is well called,
according to Gerarde, 'from their similitude to the
jagged cloathe buttons, antiently worn in this kingdom.'
Sometimes, but rarely, the more recent name for a
flower is the more poetical. Cowslip is a distinct im-
provement upon ' paigle,' the old English name, though
it is well not to inquire too closely into the etymology
of cowslip as given in Skeat's dictionary.

Much has been written on the question of what is
the true gilliflower. No doubt Chaucer, Spenser, and
Shakespeare meant thereby the clove carnation ; l but

1 Girofie, gilofre, or gilliflower — a corruption of caryophyllum, a
clove.

116 OLD ENGLISH FLOWER NAMES

later writers applied the name to the wallflower and
stock. Another name for this flower was sops-in-wine —

' Many a clove gilofre
And notemuge to put in ale,
Whether it be moist or stale.'

Gerarde observes that ' the conserue made of the floures
of the Cloue Gillofloure and sugar, is exceedingly
cordiall, and wonderfully aboue measure doth comfort
the heart, being eaten now and then.' Why does not
some enterprising housewife revive this forgotten
dainty ?

There has been controversy, too, over the identity of
Homer's asphodel. It was probably a kind of narcissus,
and the name survives in our ' daffodil,' through the old
French fleur d'asphodille ; but Lucian and later writers
assigned it to a plant with an edible root, classed by
Linnseus as Asphodelus. Another kind of narcissus
(N. incomparabilis) is well named nonpareil, though
the fragrant double form thereof has fared less felici-
tously as butter-and-eggs.

Talking of edible roots, notice may be made of a
comical blunder fallen into by the early translators of
the Old Testament. We read in 2 Kings vi. 25 that,
during the siege of Samaria in the reign of Ahab, the
famine was so terrible that the fourth part of a cab of
dove's dung was sold for five shekels; that is, about
half a pint for twelve shillings. This statement greatly
perplexed the erudite Cruden in the preparation of his
Concordance; for it is clear that no amount of that
unsavoury material could be of the slightest use, even

MAY 117

to starving people. The Rabbins, he says, explained
that it was not the droppings of pigeons that sold at
this exorbitant rate, but the corn which the birds
brought back in their crops from the country; but it
does not seem to have struck these commentators that
the birds themselves would have been more valuable
as food than the grain in their crops. The probable
explanation is that the reference is to the roots of
the Ornithogalum (ornithogale of Pliny) — either the
star-of-Bethlehem (0. umbellatum) or the Arabian
ornithogalum (0. arabicum), both of which sheet the
plains with white blossoms in spring, suggesting the
homely similitude of the droppings of birds. No
doubt, half a pint of the nutritious bulbs of this plant
would be well worth the price quoted, under the stress
of famine.

Herbalists, in preparing simples, have made them-
selves responsible for as many flower-names as lovers
have done in preparing posies. Eyebright, feverfew,
fleabane, are thoroughly good names, and so is tutsan,
that is, tout-sain, the countryman's name for St. John's
wort ; for, as good Gerarde saith, ' the leves, floures, and
seeds stamped and put in a glasse with oile olive, and
set in the sunne for certain weekes, doth make an oile
of the colour of blood, which is a most pretious remedy
for deep wounds, and those that are thorow the body.'
All-heal, or wound -wort, however, is another plant —
Stachys palustris — useful for staunching bleeding.

But the doctrine of signatures, whereby the fancied
resemblance of parts of plants to organs of the human

118 ROYAL OAK DAY

body was held to indicate their power of healing such
organs, produced some very ugly names. English
names, as a rule, are preferable to scientific ones, but
it is prettier to speak of the pretty spring flower as
Hepatica than to translate the term into our English
liverwort, both names arising from a fancied re-
semblance of its leaves to the human liver; and
Pidinonaria is a nicer word than lungwort, con-
ferred on a well-known borage -wort, because the
leaves reminded curious persons of the human lung.

Yet there is an aroma about these old-world names
which is lost in the pedantic precision of Latin
classification, though it is not everybody who thinks
so. Not long ago an enthusiast was showing a
sympathetic, but inexpert, friend the glories of his
rock garden, and drew his attention to the trailing
sprays of a pretty creeper. 'It is very like Creeping
Jenny/ quoth the visitor. 'It is Creeping Jenny,'
confessed the proprietor, 'but we don't call it so in
botany. It is Lysimacliia nummularia aurea.'

XLVI

Board schools are too apt to replace ignorance with

mere knowingness, instead of with knowledge, but some

Royal oak °f °ur old rural traditions possess a vitality

Day which, thus far, has enabled them to resist

their influence. One of these is the observance of

Royal Oak Day : one may yet see the oak-spray worn

in the caps of ploughboys in many parts of England.

In the Thames valley the custom, if not universal, is

MAY 119

at least prevalent. I have not noticed it in Scotland,
but I came across it some years ago very near the
English border. I got into conversation with a hill
farmer on the lonely pass of Hardknot, midway
between Kendal and Kavenglass. It happened to be
a very early season, and I remarked on the abundance
of grass on the hills.

' Ay,' replied the dalesman, ' there be plenty of grass,
seeing this be but yack-bob day.'

I was puzzled, till I remembered it was May 29, and
' yack-bob ' was Cumbrian for oak-apple.

XLVII

The employment which detained me in this remote
region for several days was a very interesting one. I
was charged with the superintendence of a Hardknot
gang of workmen excavating the fine Roman camp
camp at Hardknot, at the head of Esdale, in Cum-
berland. Esdale, or Eskdale, as it should be written,
extends from the ancient Roman seaport of Raven-
glass (now silted up) into the very heart of the lake
district, and is full of remains of Roman occupation.
At Ravenglass itself are the remains of a Roman villa,
of which the walls are still eight or ten feet high, with
the plaster quite fresh inside. There is also a fine camp,
which has suffered much from agriculture and railway
works. This gives the name to Muncaster, from Saxon
times the home of the Penningtons, and yielding in turn
the title by which the head of that family, English of
the English, was raised to the Irish peerage under one

120 HAKDKNOT CAMP

of the inscrutable rules of modern chivalry. Muncaster
Castle itself stands on a steep bluff on the Esk, a mile
or so above the old camp. It is impossible to guess
how long it has endured as a stronghold ; guarding, as
it does, a ford in the estuary, it was, no doubt, occupied
and fortified by native tribes long before the Roman
occupation. The conquerors would not be slow to
secure such an important position, and, in fact, the
foundations of the feudal keep are of Roman work.
During some alterations in the building a few years
ago a fine gold coin of Theodosius the Great was
discovered. The ancient tower still frowns across
the ford it was built to defend, the central block of
modern additions.' l

To reach the head of Esdale the traveller may avail
himself of a funny little railway, constructed some time
ago for the use of some iron workings, which, happily
for the beauty of the vale, have proved abortive. He
will not fail to admire the Protean versatility of one
of the Company's officials, who, leaving Ravenglass in
the capacity of guard, jumps from his van on arriving
at a station, becomes station-master, produces a key,
unlocks the booking-office, and turns into booking-

1 Over the lychgate of the old churchyard of Muncaster is graven
the following mediaeval inscription, which, seeing that it is in a dead
language, perhaps may be committed without offence to the discreet
obscurity of a footnote —

' ??tc locus ijk sacrr rst ; tiic nullt mingm fas tzt.'
The legend is paraphrased on the other side of the gate as follows :

' Cfjts place, ti)tte toalls anS all aruunto rAat ;
So nought unholp or unsrnnlo t\tre.'

MAY 121

clerk. Then, metamorphosed into porter, he attends
to the baggage of rare passengers, sounds his whistle,
and — presto! is once more guard as the train moves
off. But to arrive at Hardknot pleasantly, the tourist
will do better to let himself be driven, or ride his
bicycle along the road which, following the brawling
Esk, threading the oak copse, and, being indeed of
greater excellence than many more frequented high-
ways, is altogether a path of pleasantness. He may
turn off near Randall Holm to inspect the Roman tile-
works at the foot of Muncaster Fell ; and then, pushing
on to the farm of Butter-Eldkeld, about twelve miles
from Ravenglass, he comes in full view of Sea Fell. At
this point the road, hitherto thoroughly well-behaved,
in spite of occasional mildly subalpine propensities,
suddenly loses all self-respect, and flings itself in impos-
sible gradients full on the face of Hardknot Pass. This
was of old the pack-horse way between Kendal (Con-
cangium of the Itinerary), the principal wool-market of
the north-west, and Ravenglass, its principal seaport.

Guarding the highest point of the pass lies Hardknot
Camp, on the bare flank of the fell, about four hundred
feet above Butter-Eldkeld, and seven hundred above
the sea. It is a Roman camp of orthodox design, con-
sisting of a square enclosure measuring rather more
than one hundred paces on the face, surrounded by a
massive rampart of roughly-hewn stone, and protected,
save where the ground is precipitous, by a deep foss.
The four gateways occupy their usual positions in the
centre of each face ; and these, as well as the massive

122 HAEDKNOT CAMP

towers at each angle of the camp, have been finished
with coigns of red freestone. This freestone, which
must have been sea-borne to Ravenglass, for the rock
of the district is metamorphic Silurian with intrusive
granite, unfortunately has been the cause of much
damage to the buildings, which have been pillaged for
generations for material to sharpen scythes.

Within the enclosure remain the ruined walls of the
prsetorium and other extensive buildings, showing that
Hardknot has been a stationary summer camp. Out-
side the camp, beside the praetorian gate, a small
circular temple has been exposed by digging, as well
as a tavern beside a well, where no doubt the thirsty
legionaries diluted their rations of heady Gaulish wine.
Excavation of the flanking towers produced several
spear-heads, immense quantities of broken pottery, and
a ring carved in intaglio. Altogether, Hardknot re-
mains one of the best preserved Roman fortifications in
Britain. It may have been garrisoned by a cohort of
four hundred and twenty legionaries, besides which there
was accommodation for about fifteen hundred native
auxiliaries, brought there for the summer training.

Not the least interesting feature in connection with
it is a campus tnartius higher up the mountain side.
Here a space of about sixty acres has been cleared of
stones, terraced and levelled, forming a smooth lawn,
in striking contrast to the rugged wilderness around.
At one corner of it is an immense cairn, the burial-
place probably of some British brave; and over all
tower the dark crags of Hardknot Fell. All is silent

MAY 123

and lonely now; no sound stirs, save the infrequent
scream of the buzzard or the bleat of the hill sheep ;
but the place must have been full of movement once,
when the rocks echoed to the trumpets of the legion,
and the cohorts wheeled and deployed on the drill-
ground so empty now.

June

XLVIII

THE flurry of spring has settled down to the affluent

fruition of full summer-tide. Intense heat in May has

j,^ made up the leeway caused by what will be

summer- talked of for many years to come as the
severest winter on record — that of 1894-5.
Even the ash has found it incompatible with decency
to remain naked any longer; and as for the oaks, by
Royal Oak Day (May 29) not one king only, but a
whole dynasty might have sheltered unseen in the
branches of any tree of moderate size.

The meadows beside the Itchen have taken a more
varied hue, less brilliant than spring verdure, but more
richly jewelled. The most princely flower there is the
sceptred flower-de-luce, which in heraldic lore vies
with the oak as the emblem of rule. But the most
delicate masterpiece of the marsh at this season is the
lowlier buckbean (Menyantkes trifoliata), with pink
buds and exquisitely fringed blossoms of pearly white,
growing in company with sapphire brooklime and
turquoise forget-me-not. The buckbean belongs to the
Gentian family, and possesses the bitter properties of

JUNE 125

its relatives. In Scotland, especially in Renfrewshire,
country people prepare a tisane from its leaves, sup-
posed to be a remedy for rheumatism, but they disguise
the bitter flavour with such quantities of sugar as to
endanger, one would think, its tonic virtue. The most
fragrant riverside flower now coming into bloom is the
meadow-sweet. There is a seeming ambiguity in the
scientific name of this plant, Spiraea, for there is
nothing spiral in the habit of this or any other member
of the large and charming group to which it belongs.
It is not till the lens reveals the spiral or twisted
arrangement of the seed-capsules that one realises
why Linnteus chose to distinguish this genus from the
rest of the rose family by the title Spircva — the twisted
one.

River shallows which, but a few weeks ago, were
ridged with rime and solid ice, are now white with the
mimic snow of water ranunculus. The blaze of golden
kingcups has yielded place to the lighter fretwork of
buttercups, and ragged-robin flings a rosy veil over the
graves of departed lady's-smocks. Spotted orchises
have leapt from the mould with torches of pale purple.
Few people care to know how grandly this plant (not
to be confused with the early purple orchis) repays
cultivation, especially a robust variety, sold by nursery-
men as the Kilmarnock orchis. Planted in generous
garden soil, it throws up spikes eighteen inches long,
and well-established clumps will carry as many as a
score of these. From the river margin the great water-
dock (Rufnex hydrolapathum) displays its splendid

126 SUMMER BIRDS

foliage, more sumptuous than many a costly exotic
grown for table decoration. It was on this plant that
the caterpillar of the Large Copper butterfly (Polyom-
matus dispar) used to feed, a species almost certainly
extinct in Britain, the last recorded specimen having
been obtained in Huntingdonshire in 1847. However,
butterflies have a mysterious way of reappearing after
a prolonged absence; the food of this insect is still
plentiful in the country, and some watchful, lucky
entomologist may strike the short cut to fame by
discovering it afresh.

Ruskin insisted hi one of his earlier works that the
beauty of natural forms never depends on violent
curves, the most intricate and ornate arrangements
consisting of lines barely deflected from straightness.
From no foliage can the draughtsman learn this lesson
more clearly than from that of the water-dock ; analysis
of the complicated group will show that all its curves
are gentle, sometimes barely perceptible.

XLIX

If the movement of life does not seem so headlong in

June as it was in May, there is no real relaxation of

Summer energy, either among birds or plants. The

Birds reed and sedge warblers are not so vociferous

as they were a month ago, but they are not the less

intent on household cares. Of all water-side birds,

there is none that makes such a brave display with

such modest material as the reed bunting (Emberiza

schwniculus). The plumage of the male bird is not

JUNE 127

greatly different in hue and arrangement from that of
the cock sparrow — not the disreputable dingy London
individual, but such as may be seen in any country
farmyard. The bunting's back, however, is of a brighter
brown, his jetty cap is more jauntily worn, and the
brilliance of his white breast and collar give him a far
more dressy appearance than the cockiest sparrow that
ever hopped. Add to this the grace and agility of his
movements, and you have a bird that seems born to
the purple, though by some accident nothing more
vivid than russet, black and white, has been served out
to him.

Late in these delicious evenings may be heard the
nightjar — latest of our summer migrants to arrive
and earliest to depart — reeling off his strange cry
like a wooden rattle. No bird has suffered more
unjustly than this one from a variety of libellous
names. Closely crepuscular in habits, its uncanny
looks brought suspicion on it while the world was
yet very young. Thus Pliny gravely dubbed it
Caprimulgus, Aristotle Aigothelas, terms which we
have closely translated 'goatsucker,' thus indorsing
the ridiculous idea that it sucks the milk of cows
and goats, arising from its custom of pursuing winged
insects under the bellies of cattle. Then the titles of
fern-owl and night-hawk brought it into the game-
keeper's Index expurgatorius as vermin, though
another of its popular names, dor-hawk — the scourge
of dors or beetles — ought to have sufficed to protect
it. Thousands of these beautiful and useful birds

128 SUMMER BIRDS

have paid the death-penalty on the charge of killing
game, and sucking milk or eggs, though the least
intelligent rustic, one would say, might perceive that
its wide gape and weak, fringed beak render it wholly
incapable of any of these crimes. The nightjar is, of
course, neither a hawk nor an owl, but a near relative of
the swallows, and feeds exclusively on insects captured
on the wing. If, as is hardly likely, you are so sharp-
sighted as to detect the nightjar perched on a tree,
you shall never see him sitting athwart the bough after
the manner of other birds, but always lengthways, and
closely parallel to it. But you are very likely to flush
the parent birds after the young ones are hatched, and
these may lead you a long chase by the time-honoured
feint of a broken wing, to draw you away from the
brood.

As the nesting season draws to a close, the male birds
of many species take back-seats. The cuckoo loses his
voice, the throstle and merle their song ; the cock
pheasant seems to shrink by one-third of his former
size, the scarlet patch round his eye dwindles and gets
dim, and the horn-like ear-coverts, so characteristic of
the nuptial dress, disappear. But this is slight dis-
figurement compared to that which befalls the mallard
— the male of the common wild-duck. This bird is
among the earliest native species to incubate. The
female sits close for some eight-and-twenty days, while
her mate plays the part of a well-dressed loafer, airing
his fine plumage in the spring sunshine with others of
his own sex, and paying no attention to his offspring

JUNE 129

when hatched, though the duck is one of the best of
mothers. It is a pretty sight to watch her in some
shallow bay, floating quietly with that look of ineffable
content which all the duck tribe have more or less,
while the young brood dart around in all directions
after flies. Often, during May and June, the angler,
stalking a rising trout, is balked by a mother duck,
scrambling, a pretended cripple at his feet, and splashing
away right over his chosen cast, while the ducklings
quickly thread their way to safety among the flags.
But from mid- June the mallard may be seen no more
till autumn. His beautiful green head and neck are
disfigured, partially by a special summer moult ex-
tending to nearly all parts of the body and impairing
or actually suspending his power of flight, and partially
by discoloration of the old feathers. Henceforward,
indistinguishable in plumage from the duck, he will
skulk about in secret places till, early in October, the
autumn moult begins to restore his beauty and vigour,
and he becomes again one of the most conspicuous of
our wild birds. It is curious how many people, with
ample opportunities of becoming familiar with nature,
have overlooked this summer masquerade of the wild
duck, which is the more remarkable because the
domestic duck, undoubtedly descended from the
mallard, undergoes no such seasonal change. This
summer disguise of a brilliant bird reminds one of
the observance of the ancient Aztec nobles, who were
compelled to conceal their gay dresses under robes of
sackcloth before entering the presence of Montezuma.

130 A WORD TO ANGLERS IN HOT WEATHER

L

Trout are now in prime condition, and no prettier
present can be offered than a brace of silvery beauties
A word t freskty caught. But too often they are
Anglers in allowed to lose all their freshness before
Hot Weather cram

the basket or bag with grass or other herbage, thinking
thereby to protect the fish from the heat. It is useless
— worse, it is mischievous, for half-withered grass is apt
to impart an evil flavour, and it discolours lustrous
scales. Let each trout as it is caught be wrapped
promptly in paper — good newspaper will do — which
excludes heated air better than anything else. Then,
at the close of the day, unroll your spoil, and each
trout will be found bright and stiff, fit to set before
the daintiest lady in the land. This wrinkle will prove
of special service when you get that six-pounder, which
you intend, of course, to have stuffed as a trophy. You
will be able to send it to the preserver without those
blotches and streaks of discoloration which, being
indelible, render hand-painting necessary. But for
the love of all that is gracious, do not leave scraps
of newspaper lying on the river bank ! for of all objects
in a summer landscape, none are more obscene than
these, and there are places where even the Athenaeum
or the Church Times are an eyesore.

JUNE 131

LI

This is the month of all the year which Christopher
North, not without good reason, preferred above all
others for trout-fishing in Scottish lochs. Locn Trout-
Dry-fly adepts hesitate to recognise the most FiB&ias
successful lake-fisher as an artist, and there is some
reason for their superciliousness. For the fact is, that
whereas a bungler may catch fish by casting flies at
random from a boat, he must be purged of his bungling
before scoring a single capture in a chalk-stream, and
have ascended many degrees towards excellence before
he can number his victims by brace. Nevertheless, the
bungler, bungle he never so diligently, will find that
the trout in most Scottish lochs are no longer the
ravenous dupes that once they were. They take a lot
of catching, though exacting consideration of a different
kind from that required on the Test or Itchen.

The angler passing from the banks of a southern
stream to the shores of a Scottish loch meets with fish
of identically the same species as he has left behind
him; but how different is their behaviour! Compare
the hurried, splashing, hit-or-miss rise of a Highland
trout with the leisurely approach, suspicious scrutiny,
and noiseless ' sip ' of his relative in Hampshire. After
all, there is a reason for this ; though it did not occur
to me till after several days' salmon fishing in a lake
led me to reflect on the different behaviour in taking
the fly pursued by the salmon in the lake, compared
with that of the same fish in the river running out of

132 LOCH TROUT-FISHING

it. Seven salmon out of ten hooked in a stream take
the fly under water, without breaking the surface till
they feel the hook ; nine out of ten coming at the fly in
a lake rise with a dash, often throwing themselves clean
out of the water in seizing it. The reason is pretty
obvious. In still water, even when agitated by wind,
the fly must be drawn pretty quickly along the surface
to keep the line taut ; to the salmon it seems as if the
creature which has excited his curiosity is on the point
of escaping, and he shows himself in his desperate
hurry to overtake it. In a stream, on the other hand,
the most deadly moment is just when the fly comes ' to
hang ' ; it is then nearly stationary, and the fish can
take it at his leisure. I have repeatedly watched a
salmon rise behind a brother angler's fly in a strong
stream, poise itself, and then with a forward, but not
violent movement, glide on and take it. So it is with
trout. Put a floating fly over a Scottish burn trout,
and, provided the stream is not too swift, he will rise to
meet and take it with no greater disturbance of the
water than the most sophisticated inhabitant of a chalk
stream.

But the marked contrast between the behaviour of
Scottish and English trout when hooked must be
accounted for in some other way. The English fish (of
course, the allusion is only to fish in the southern
counties) make a brave show at first, having a specially
embarrassing knack of rushing straight down stream
towards the angler's feet, causing a disastrous slack in
the line, unless it is smartly drawn downwards through

JUNE 133

the rings. If he does not run towards you, he makes
a spirited dash up or across the stream, and nothing
could stir the nerves more pleasantly than his conduct
so far. But supposing the angler to be man enough to
hold his own through this initial display, there is very
little more to follow. Provided the fish does not catch
sight of his foe, and plunge frantically into a bed of
weeds (trout will seldom weed themselves unless they
see the fisherman), he yields after the first rush with
little more spirit than a lubberly chub. A Scottish
trout, on the other hand, will fight to his last gasp,
leaping often from the water and running as strong
after a few seconds' repose as at the first rush. Nobody
with experience of northern and southern fish can have
the slightest hesitation in affirming that, were an angler
to begin operations on the shore of a loch where the
trout run a fair average, say from three-quarters of a
pound to three pounds, using the gossamer tackle which
is indispensable to successful dry-fly practice, probably
one fish in every three hooked would break him.

This applies only to fishing off the shore, or wading,
when the effort of the fish is always to get into the
deep water. In fishing from a boat the odds are
greatly in favour of the fisherman, seeing that the fish
may be followed. Be it observed here that half the
excitement of loch fishing is lost in the usual practice
of casting from a boat. In almost every loch there are
points and bays which may be easily covered by one on
the shore or wading moderately deep. The labour is
greater, no doubt, but so is the sport when a good trout

134 LOCH TROUT-FISHING

is hooked, as the angler is more or less a fixed point.
No one who has not experienced it can realise what a
splendid fight is made by a three-pound trout, hooked
on moderately fine tackle by one wading to mid-thigh.
He spins off a score of yards of line at the first rush,
throws himself aloft, bores into the deep till the point
of the little ' Dunkeld ' is buried in the water, sweeps
round in a semicircle, the line cutting the waves like
the prow of a racing cutter, and not till he settles to
quieter tactics dares the fisher begin to make his way
ashore. Half, at least, of the exquisite anxiety of the
struggle is sacrificed if oars may be plied in whatever
direction the fish is heading.

The advantage of shore fishing over fishing from a
boat is chiefly apparent in May and June, when most
feeding trout lie along the line where the water deepens
to more than three feet. Later on, when summer heat
has raised the temperature of the whole lake, roving
trout may be seen rising all over it, and a boat must be
had to reach them. But even in July and August good
fish sport may be enjoyed off the shore, especially off
points and capes, which are better at that season than
earlier in the year, when most execution is done in
sheltered bays.

In lakes where trout are large but few, it is weary
work to thrash the waste of water on the chance of the
flies falling within view of one of them. In such places
a flood comes in very usefully to save labour. The
fish then congregate round the mouths of hill burns,
keenly on the look-out for what the swollen waters

JUNE 135

may bring down to them. There, if anywhere, may
rising trout be marked and business done with some
of the whoppers that seldom come abroad in the day-
time under normal circumstances.

LII

In this blessed land of freedom one is permitted to
entertain and proclaim opinions of every degree of
latitude on any conceivable subject. That FiShing with
is a great privilege, no doubt: but a still Miaao*
greater is that nobody is compelled to listen to, still
less to agree with, the opinions of anybody else. I am
transgressing no law, therefore, in affirming that the
only sportsmanlike way of taking trout is with the
artificial fly, although that will be reckoned rank heresy
by those who own Izaak Walton as the only true head.
Mr. Andrew Lang, in editing one of the hundred and
odd editions of the Compleat Angler, was the first to
point out that Izaak was no fly-fisher. It is true that
he gives a jury of twelve flies, with directions how to
tie them ; but these were cribbed sans phrase from an
earlier authority, Mr. Barker. Walton himself had his
limitations : he had heard of, but never seen, the use of
a reel, and he relied for his diversion on ' the cork or
trembling quill.' Bottom-fishing with a float for trout
can have but few advocates now, though I have known
it resorted to in a loch, not without success, when the
fish were ' dour ' ; but minnow-fishing, unhappily, is far
too prevalent, especially in Scotland. It is one of those
acts of which a man may say with the Apostle that all

136 FISHING WITH MINNOW

things are lawful for him, but all things are not expe-
dient. Time was when he who persisted in whistling
on the Sabbath in Scotland assuredly would have been
brought in collision with the law, which in that fair
land is called the Shirra ; and to this day there remain
plenty of occasions for stumbling into the presence of that
omnipresent functionary. But the Shirra has no terrors
for minnow-fishers ; so minnow-fishing, however inex-
pedient, must be reckoned among things that are lawful.

There are times for minnow-fishing, too, as there are
times for other melancholy or inglorious occupations ;
for there are trout in Scotland so lost to all refined
feeling, that the March brown and heckumpeckum stir
no appetite in their weighty carcases, and the Zulu and
red-and-teal may be trailed never so cunningly over
their haunts without producing so much as the twinkle
of a fin. To such fish — hostes piscarice gentis — approach
must be had in the only way suited to their gross palates,
and Acheron must be moved to avert a blank day.

Let no one who has control over a sheet of water
where trout behave like creatures of gentle breeding
permit the use of the minnow under any pretext what-
ever. Loch Leven is such a sheet of water, its trout
being models of behaviour as well as symmetry. Few
other waters contain fish of such free rising propensity,
combined with goodly size, and none are more per-
petually flogged. Yet there are ' dour ' days on Loch
Leven as well as on lochs of less repute ; days on which,
in the language of the Stock Exchange, it might be
reported that ' a general dull tone, difficult to account

JUNE 137

for, prevailed in all departments. Small lots of Duns
and cinnamon reds freely on offer met with a total
absence of demand. All stocks, however, firmly held
in expectation of a rise.' Now, inasmuch as the public
are invited to angle in Loch Leven on payment of a
substantial, though by no means exorbitant sum, they
are not fond of planking down their dollars (payment,
by the by, at Loch Leven is expected in the national
coinage of bawbees, though southern money will not
be refused) and going home with empty creels. So
recourse is had to natural and unnatural minnows —
phantoms, pearlbacks, kill-devils, Devon spinners, and
other unhallowed contrivances, which are plied daily
from shore to shore. That Loch Leven is not utterly
ruined for sport, and continues to produce trout light-
hearted enough to rise at the fly in the face of such
disheartening treatment, shows how extraordinary are
its resources.

The fact is, that a trout hooked on strong tackle, its
mouth crammed with several triangles, and with the
weight of forty yards of submerged line to contend
with, can offer no good fight. Sport degenerates into
the merest pot-hunting.

LIU

But there are exceptional lochs where the use of the
minnow is not only pardonable but commendable, inas-
much as it is the only way of catching trout

, . , , • • -ui -U i Salmoferox

which have become incorrigible cannibals,

and highly exciting, by reason of the immense size to

138 SALMO FEROX

which these fish attain. These lakes are the profound
abysses among the Highland hills, and the great trout
which lurk in their depths have been distinguished as
a separate species by some naturalists, under the title
of Salmo ferox. But there is no reason to believe that
they are anything but overgrown specimens of the
common brook or loch trout; in fact, I once took in
Loch Arkaig five fish in an afternoon's trolling, ranging
from seventeen and a half pounds to two and a half
pounds, of which all were reckoned ferox, because of
the method of their capture ; but the smaller ones
might have come out of a club water in Hampshire.
On the other hand, I have seen trout of ten and twelve
pounds taken with prawn and minnow out of the pool
below Romsey Bridge on the Test ; nobody thought of
calling them ferox, though they presented all the out-
ward characteristics of that so-called species, except
that, from living in shallower water, they had not
acquired the dark purple and black complexion of the
northern monsters. This peculiar dark tint disappears
after the fish has been out of the water for some hours
in a cool place.

However, Salmo ferox is a really good descriptive
name for a class of trout taken in deep and extensive
lakes, for these are the fiercest of all British fresh-water
fishes. The pike compares with a typical ferox as a
Southdown sheep-dog does with a grey wolf. The pike
has a Pecksniffian air, as of one who should say — ' It is
true, my friends, that there is a pound trout inside me ;
it is quite extraordinary how valuable articles get mis-

JUNE 139

laid. There are also half a dozen poor little salmon fry,
not to mention a misguided grandchild of my own ; but,
then, you see, that 'a what comes of my having such a
confoundedly wide mouth. I am rather forgetful some-
times, and leave it open, and then these things get into
it.' But there is no disguise upon the countenance of
a ferox. It is seamed with hatred in every line of it ;
the huge underhung mouth is an engine of insatiable
gluttony ; and the deep-set eyes have exchanged the
expression of mild misanthropy you see in those of a
young trout for a look of malignant cunning. ' Ah ! '
you may hear him mutter between your knees as
you extricate your tackle from his well-armed jaws,
« wouldn't I like to bite your leg off, you big brute !
Wouldn't I like to have you in a cool ten fathoms of
water. / 'd tear you into bloody ribbons before I 'd
done with you.'

The largest lake trout to the capture of which I can
personally testify (though I was not the captor) was
one of twenty-two pounds taken in Loch Arkaig.
Larger ones have been recorded, but not very many
of them. To attain such dimensions, or anything
approaching them, requires exceptional conditions of
depth and space. In waters where food is very
abundant, it is true that monsters do manage to exist
unmolested long enough to grow to prodigious size ;
witness the sixteen pounds trout secured in a dubious
way in the Itchen by a labouring man some years ago.
But lochs that produce big ferox are invariably both
extensive and very deep. These fish must have

140 SALMO FEKOX

profound solitudes to harbour in by day, and plenty of
sea-room too for privateering at night. Your requisites
to compass the destruction of a ferox are a good boat
and a couple of stout rowers (not a steam launch,
surely, for you are after noble quarry, and should treat
him chivalrously), two strong rods with not less than a
hundred and twenty yards of flawless line on the reel of
each, spinning tackle of the best (pay special attention
to the temper of the triangle hooks), and good store of
troutlets for bait. Phantom minnows will do business
at times, or other artificial lures ; but there is nothing
to compare with the young of their own species to take
these patriarchs withal. In nearly every Highland
loch there is a belt of shoal water round the shores,
whence the bottom shelves rapidly or plunges cliff-like
to a great depth. It is along this line that the bait is
most often seized. It ought not to swim at a less
depth than eight to twelve feet, to ensure which at
least fifty yards of line should be paid out. In crossing
the lake or its bays the depth should be increased, for
these fish ever lie deep in the day-time, though as the
shades begin to fall they move towards the shores to
feed. Diligence is essential, and a rough wind con-
ducive to success, and the rush and wild plunge of a
good ferox make it worth while to exercise the first in
the teeth of the last. When you have got him — hum !
ferox is eatable certainly, but not exactly the kind of
food to pine for. It is best late in the season, and then
ought to be broiled in steaks.

JUNE 141

LIV

Albeit ferox can only be found in great and deep
lakes, there are often good thumping trout to be
caught in very insignificant tarns. There is, A Mo0riand
moreover, a notable charm in casting angle Tarn
where few have ever done so before. Mystery is the
dominant attraction in fishing, and in remote hill lochs
one never knows what may populate the dark waters —
sprats or sockdologers. One such lakelet I had heard
of as a boy, but never had fished or heard of anybody
else fishing. It lies in the middle of a dreary tract of
peat moss, which once, no doubt, was a wide mere, of
which this tarn is the last remaining driblet, extending
barely to a couple of acres, one-third of it reed-beds.
Shooting grouse along its margin one day, I noticed a
fish rise, and made a mental note to put a fly over it
on the first opportunity. This did not occur till the
following year, when, on a day in early June, I had
been fishing in vain with a friend an excellent loch
near the sea. It was no use ; we could not persuade
the trout to do business any way; so in despair I
proposed an excursion to the moorland tarn. The way
to it was rough, over several miles of moss and moor,
but we were young and tough, and by four in the
afternoon were standing on its solitary marge. A
dismal scene it was, and unpromising for our craft.
Three sides of the pool were surrounded by quaking
bog, fringed with reeds ; on the fourth side, the only
part where it might be possible to cast a fly, the wind

142 A MOORLAND TARN

blew in straight and hard, driving the inky waves upon
cavernous resounding banks of peat, crested with rank
heather, while the softness of the bottom put wading
out of the question. Fishing, in fact, was out of the
question ; we had endured our toil for nothing ; there
was nothing for it but to make our way back whence
we had come.

We were gazing dejectedly at the dreary little hole,
when suddenly, hopelessly out of reach, there came a
spanking rise, followed shortly by another. There were
good fish, then, in this unpromising abode, though they
might as well have been in Kamschatka for all the use
they were to us. Thereupon befell a strange thing. It
was the Devil himself that put a simultaneous thought
in both our minds. Our eyes met and sank guiltily.

' Eh ? ' gasped my friend, with a wretched attempt at
a smile.

I nodded, with a still more abortive manifestation of
mirth.

We looked behind us and all around. There was no
sign of human presence or habitation, not even a bird
to carry the tale of the dreadful deed that was in our
minds. Without a word spoken, we sat down on the
heather and unbuckled our flybooks right away. Five
strong casting lines we chose and knotted together, end
to end ; twenty good flies we appended to them at due
intervals; and then, with tremulous fingers, attached
the ends of the fifteen yards of gut to the ends of our
two reel lines, I stole round the margin to the farther
shore, amid hummocks of bog-myrtle and peat, the

JUNE 143

while the reels spun out the line as the distance
between the conspirators widened. Then, being on
opposite sides of the tarn, distant from each other may
be a hundred yards or thereby, we began to draw the
flies slowly along the surface of the water.

Bang ! he has it : a good thumper too, and we begin
to play him in concert.

Alas ! for the best-laid plans. The trout had not
made more than a couple of somersaults when one of
the casting lines parted, and he was free. I, to keep
the unmanageable length of line from the bottom,
began running backwards over the moor, and presently
plunged headlong into a wet moss hole. However, to
cut this long yarn short, and make a clean breast of it,
damages were soon repaired, the same tactics were
renewed, and by this nefarious device some very good
trout were landed. They were as dark as tench, but
beautifully shaped, and proved on the table as sweet
as if their skins had shown the lustre of gold and
rubies.

LV

How much more deeply cruelty offends when it is
enacted in fair scenes! So I thought to myself one
Thoughtless Sunday evening not long ago, witnessing an
crufeity unpleasant incident in the meadows below
Winchester. Troops of swifts were sweeping low and
fast over the Itchen ; round and round they went with
shrill, soft cries, rejoicing in their perfect wingmanship.
At a bend of the stream stood a couple of fellows with
long sticks, hitting at the birds as they went by.
Generally they missed their aim, but every now and
then there was a shout and much unlovely laughter,
as one or other of them knocked one of the birds down
in mid flight. My first impulse was to go up and tell
the clowns they were a couple of cruel rascals, and
order them to desist. What was it restrained me —
prudence, justice, or cowardice ? Perhaps a mixture
of all three ; for here are some of my reflections as I
turned away and sauntered home. I had come to
Winchester for trout-fishing, as it was not impossible
that the lads might divine, for many idlers resort to
that sweet town for no other purpose ; and if so, had
I interfered, might they not have asked, with redundant

JULY 145

expletive, what business I as a trout-fisher had to spoil
their sport ? Was it because I was opulent enough to
afford a split cane rod that I objected to their wielding
rough poles ? Killing was the object of both kinds of
weapon; but whereas they, hi knocking down swifts,
were guilty of no more than ordinary assault with
intent to kill, did not I, with my red quills, olive duns,
and invisible gut, preface murder with deliberate fraud ?
They might have explained that, if they had but the
chance, they would have infinitely preferred catching
toothsome trout to killing useless swifts ; and that, as
for skill, perhaps one amusement called for as much
practice and quickness of eye and hand as the other.
So, on the whole, perhaps I did well to hold my peace.

LVI

Turn to a prettier prospect. Here, on the same
river, a few miles above Winchester, hard by Itchen
Stoke, where, in February 1306, Edward i. && Oid
was lodging for hunting when they brought c^a^-Kt
him word of the murder of John Comyn by Robert de
Brus in distant Dumfries, is a disused chalk-pit. The
floor is closely carpeted with sward, spangled with
bugles and buttercups, and tufted in parts with bramble
and wild rose. On three sides rises the snowy cliff of
chalk, draped with pendent sprays, and crowned with
lofty trees that temper the intense sunlight, so that
this nook is fresh and green all the summer through.
One may come on many such a sunny spot among the
southern downs ; but the special interest presented by
K

146 AN OLD CHALK-PIT

this one at this moment is that within a radius of twenty
yards three pairs of particularly attractive birds have
chosen to build their nests. Of these the first is a pair
of bulfinches, of whose nest and its local exact locality
the less said the better, because people in these parts
and elsewhere have a craze for making cage prisoners
of the nestlings. The same may be said of the second
couple, which are goldfinches ; than which no bird has
paid more dearly for wearing gay feathers; it is the
favourite booty of the birdcatcher. But there is little
risk in describing the third little household, for it is
that of a pair of red-backed shrikes — the lesser butcher-
bird— and no fancier will covet their brood. This
shrike (Lanius collurio), though it cannot be con-
sidered rare in the south, is quite infrequent enough
to deserve careful attention. It is, too, a bird of
character, sinister, as must be allowed, having earned
some infamy from its practice of gibbeting beetles,
moths, and even small mammals and reptiles, which it
impales on thorns so as to have a convenient larder.
But anybody who has watched how ruthlessly a thrush
will treat a worm in its efforts to draw it out of the
turf, acting on the principle that half a worm is better
than no breakfast, will not judge the shrike too harshly
in the matter of mercy.

The hen is sitting closely on five olive-mottled eggs,
in a briar bush in the centre of the miniature prairie
within the chalk-pit. She is a sad-coloured, un-
attractive creature ; but the cock bird, perched aloft
on the cliff, and making occasional raids on insect life,

JULY 147

is a pretty object for the spyglass, with his ruddy back
and rosy grey breast, posing as the model breadwinner
of a blameless family. There is something ominous
though in his mien ; although no larger than a night-
ingale, he is very powerfully built, with solid shoulders,
sitting low and mute on his perch. There is, too, a
suggestion of the executioner in the singular black
mask drawn across his eyes and forehead to the ear
coverts. This is the second season that a pair of these
shrikes have reared their young in this brake, and last
year careful and repeated search failed to disclose
their larder. This year, however, perseverance has
been rewarded by its discovery in the recesses of a
blackthorn thicket on the edge of the pit. The piece
de resistance in the store was the mangled carcase of
a field-vole or long-tailed mouse (it was too much
decomposed to tell which) wound tightly among the
thorns.

LVII

Of all the dogs which have suffered from our malice
in giving them bad names, none has been more unfairly
treated than the water-rat. He owes a Rats Mice
grudge to Nature, too, for bestowing on him and Voles
the garb and mien of the criminal classes. In spite of
that, there is no more blameless existence than that of
this pretty rodent. You can see all he does, for his
habits are diurnal, instead of nocturnal, like those of
rats and mice. Watch him as he swims from point
to point of the bank ; if you stand still, he will land

148 RATS, MICE, AND VOLES

almost at your feet and nibble the stems of the succu-
lent grasses, just as his powerful relative the beaver
once gnawed tree-stems in this Itchen valley. The
truth is, the water-rat is not a rat (Mus) at all, but a
vole (Arvicola), the only true water-rat being found in
Australia (Hydromys). The voles may be distinguished
from rats and mice by several external marks, such as
blunt instead of pointed snouts, short instead of long
tails, stumpy ears and small eyes. But the most im-
portant difference is in the teeth ; the peculiar structure
of its molars, which have been pronounced the per-
fection of molar dentition, ought to exonerate the
water-vole for ever from all suspicion of eating spawn,
fish, or other perquisites of greedy man. The twelve
molars have no roots, but grow on endlessly like the
incisors of other rodents, supplying the constant wear
caused by gnawing. They are tubes of hard enamel,
corrugated longitudinally, filled with soft material.

Out of about forty known species of vole, three
inhabit the British isles, namely, the water-vole
(Arvicola amphibius) ; the field- vole (A. agrestis), which
is the pest that occasionally multiplies inordinately and
destroys immense tracts of pasture and young woods ;
and the bank- vole (A. glareolus,} dignified by some
naturalists as a separate genus, because its characteristic
vole molars sometimes alter with age, the pulp cavities
hardening, and regular roots forming.

It cannot be too widely known that anybody killing
a water-vole is destroying a perfectly harmless animal.

JULY 149

LVIII

Forcibly as every observant mind must be impressed
by the ingenious mechanism provided by Nature for
the wants of animal and vegetable life, one why cattle
is sometimes inclined to suggest remedies to ^gjjj^6
apparent imperfections. These lines are Herds
written in a riverside tavern in Hampshire, where I am
sheltering from the torrid heat till approaching dusk
shall set the trout astir once more. In a little meadow
before the door, toasted to tinder by weeks of fierce
sunshine, grazes a good Alderney cow, type of patient
usefulness. Depending as I do on her to supply me
with cream and butter for breakfast, I cannot be in-
different to things concerning her comfort ; and, seeing
that July is the worst month in all the calendar for
flies, I am glad to note that she has a fine switch of
black hair at the end of her tail, and that with this
efficient fly-flap she keeps her loins and ribs free from
annoyance. But obviously it is not long enough; it
does not reach her forequarters ; her withers, shoulders,
and dewlap are densely covered with black swarms of
flies, which must be intensely irritating. Now, if I had
been designing a cow, methinks I should either have
made the tail a couple of feet longer, or, better, brought
out a subsidiary one half-way up the spinal column, to
serve the poor beast's fore-quarters.

' Gently there ! Mr. Humanitarian,' I seemed to hear
somebody whisper, ' put the saddle on the right horse
if you please. It is only too true that yonder gentle
creature is suffering horribly, but whose fault is that ? '

150 WHY CATTLE SHOULD BE KEPT IN HERDS

It did not require profound or prolonged reflection
to show where the blame really lay. It was not with
Nature's animal designer after all. Beasts that cannot
lick, scratch, or switch their own forequarters are in-
tended to go in herds, and to get their companions to
perform these services for them. It follows, therefore,
that it is an act of cruel thoughtlessness to turn out a
solitary cow to endure persecution by flies.

Since this little incident happened, I have paid more
attention to the habits of gregarious animals, and the
degree in which they are dependent on each other for
their comfort. While eating my sandwich one day
beside the Tweed at Sprouston, I watched the behaviour
of a small herd of heifers and bullocks. One of these
seemed to be in special request as coiffeur] one after
another its companions came to it, made it desist from
feeding in order to lick their necks and faces. It really
was very remarkable how good-natured this creature
was, and how freely it placed its rough tongue at the
disposal of its fellows. For fully half an hour it was
occupied in this way, snatching not more than a dozen
mouthfuls the while, and I left it so engaged in order
to resume my fishing.

Mr. Cornish mentions in his charming little book,
Animals at Work and Play, how the unhappy solitary
giraffe at the Zoo makes all its coat bright and clean
except its neck, which, as the beast has no companion
to wash it, is several shades darker than the rest of its
body, and is a source of manifest discomfort.

JULY 151

LIX

Standing on Auchensauch Hill, in the upper ward of
Lanarkshire, one may view the Black Burn flowing
eastward towards the Clyde, and on the
west the Douglas Water taking a northward
course to join the same river lower down near Lanark.
The renown of a name comes from the acts of those
who bear it ; yet it is difficult to believe that, had the
lords of this land chosen as their title, not the Celtic
name of Douglas, but its Saxon equivalent Blackburn,
chivalrous and historic association could have woven
themselves so closely round it as they have round
Douglas the tender and true. There are a hundred
streams in the north called Douglas and Blackburn
(the meaning is identical); but this Douglas — this
sluggish, loamy current winding through its green
upland dale — is famous above all other ' black- waters,'
for it has yielded its name to the most illustrious house
in Scotland.

Of the original stronghold —

' The aventurous castell of Douglas,
That to kep sa peralous was ' —

not a trace now remains. The present house is part
of a magnificent design undertaken by the Duke of
Douglas in the eighteenth century, to replace an earlier
structure battered down by Cromwell in 1651. Fired
by that ardour for stone and lime which has told so
banefully on the fortune of many a Scottish laird less
able to sustain it, the Duke commissioned the architect
Adam to build him a castle ten feet greater in height,

162 DOUGLAS

length, and breadth than the Duke of Argyll's at
Inveraray. All that Douglas. lived to see was one wing
completed, which forms the present house, for the main
block was never even begun.

It is from the teeming past that Douglas depends
for its power on the fancy — on the days when the very
existence of Scotland among the nations was at stake.
Sir James of Douglas, afterwards the first Lord Douglas,
was the trustiest and doughtiest of Brace's comrades
in the terrible winter of 1306-7, and Sir Robert de
Clifford held his castle for King Edward. Leaving his
king among the mountains around Glentrool, Douglas,
weary of ever skulking in hiding, resolved to strike
one blow in the offensive. Coming in disguise, with
two companions only, to Hazelside, on his own lands
in Lanarkshire, he was gladly received by Thomas
Dickson, an old retainer of his father. The English
garrison had earned plenty of ill-will in the neighbour-
hood, and there was no difficulty in getting volunteers
for a plot to seize the castle. On Palm Sunday, 1307,
the garrison paraded and marched off to hear mass
at St. Bride's chapel, about a mile from the castle.
Douglas and his confederates, disguised as peasants,
crowded into the chapel behind the soldiers. The
service was proceeding quietly, when suddenly some
one cried out aloud, ' A Douglas ! ' In a moment the
soldiers were overpowered, half of them slain, and the
rest bound as prisoners. Returning to the castle,
Douglas found it in charge only of the porter and cook,
the latter busy making ready the soldiers' dinner.

N GLENTROOL.

JtJLY 153

Having done full justice to the welcome meal, the
Scots pillaged the building, piled the stores and pro-
visions which were too heavy to remove, broached the
wine-barrels, beheaded their prisoners, and, tossing into
the heap the bodies of men and horses, set fire to it
and burnt the castle to the ground. This grisly affair
was remembered as the ' Douglas Larder ' ; for, says
Barbour —

' Mele and malt and blud and wyn
Kan all togidder in a mellyn,
That was unsemly for to se :
Tharfor the men of that cuntre,
For sic thingis thar mellit 1 wer,
Callit it the Douglas lardener.'

This took place on March 19th, and de Clifford was
busy all that summer in rebuilding the castle. Sir
John de Wanton was placed in command, having been
made constable at his own request. He loved a lady,
it seems, who was not unkind, but would only consent
to 'name the day' after he had proved himself 'ane
gud bacheler' by holding this terrible fortress for a
whole year — no light task, considering how closely its
rightful owner kept his eye on it. Lanark Fair took
place early in October of the same year in which the
Douglas Larder had been enacted. Douglas deemed
it high time to beat up the English quarters again.
He laid a strong ambush near the castle, and, choosing
fourteen stout fellows, caused them to pull country
frocks over their harness, to stuff some sacks with grass

1 Mingled.

154 DOUGLAS

and lay them on the backs of their horses. Then they
were to defile in full view of the castle, as if they were
farmers on their way to the market. De Wanton was
known to be short of provender, and Douglas reckoned
on his laying a strong hand on the sacks, apparently
full of corn. Sure enough, no sooner did the warder
spy the little company than he sent word to the con-
stable, who himself rode out with a small party to
overhaul it. But he caught a Tartar; the supposed
rustics entered into parley; but no sooner were the
soldiers completely off their guard than the brave lads
threw off their frocks, tumbled the sacks on the ground,
sprang into their saddles, and attacked Sir John's party.
At the same moment Douglas led up his ambush, and
the English were taken in front and rear. Sir John de
Wanton was slain, and there was found on his person
the fatal letter from his lady-love, obedience to which
had cost him his life. Douglas caused the unfinished
works at the castle to be levelled with the ground, but
this time the lives of its garrison were spared.

Such are some of the crowded memories that haunt
this dale, peaceful though it lies before us now in this
soft July weather; such, and many more of a like
stirring kind, filled the thoughts of Sir Walter Scott
when, broken in fortune and in health, he travelled
hither to study the scenery of his last romance, Castle
Dangerous. It is said that as he gazed in silence on
the landscape, his aged eyes filled with tears, till he
turned away, repeating the words of the dying Douglas
to his nephew at Otterburn : —

JULY 155

' My wound is deep, I fain would sleep ;
Take thou the vanguard of the three,
And hide me by the bracken bush
That grows on yonder lilye lea.

Oh, bury me by the bracken bush,

Beside the blooming brier,
And never let living mortal ken

That e'er a kindly Scot lies here.'

Wholly altered as Douglas Castle and its environ-
ment have been into the commonplace residence of
a county magnate, its interest for the casual visitor
depends entirely on his knowledge of local lore. But
the village of Douglas still betrays its mediaeval origin
by its narrow, tortuous streets and closes. Still there
stands part of the ancient chapel of St. Bride of
Douglas, in reproachful contrast to the ghastly edifices
where the faithful of the Established and Free Kirks
conduct their praise. Little remains of the building
older than the fourteenth century; but among the
monuments in the chancel, sorely defaced by centuries
of neglect and brutal mischief, there may still be recog-
nised the recumbent figure of Marjory of Abernethy,
wife of Hugh de Douglas, who died in 1259. Here
sleeps also the comrade of Bruce, the good Sir James,
whose monument, with the figure fairly preserved, is
the chief ornament in the north wall of the aisle. His
heart is reputed to be preserved in one of two leaden
caskets, let into glazed recesses on the altar steps ; but
more probably these contain the hearts of the fifth and
eighth Earls of Angus, of whom the former — ' Bell-the-
Cat ' — lies in St. Ninian's shrine at Whithorn.

156 RIVER POLLUTION

The present Earl of Home, upon whom, through the
female line, have devolved the honours and possessions
of this ancient house, has reverently repaired this
chapel of St. Bride, and these relics are preserved from
further dilapidation.

On a green knoll to the west of the village stands
a modern work of art of singular merit. It is a statue
in bronze, the work of Mr. Brock, lately erected by the
officers of the Cameronian (26th) Kegiinent, com-
memorating James Douglas, Earl of Angus, only son
of the second Marquis of Douglas. He raised a regi-
ment of 1200 men from among the Covenanters of
the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, and fell at the head
thereof at the battle of Steinkirk in 1692, being then
but twenty-one years of age. The sculptor has repre-
sented the young lord standing with his hand extended
towards the glens whence he drew the regiment, which
was known by his name at first, and later became
famous as the Cameronians. It is a most impressive
monument, worthy of this historic scene.

LX

Perhaps as one to whom angling is the solitary

illusion left — the one pursuit which, for me, age cannot

River wither, nor custom stale its infinite variety

Pollution — j ghaij ke SUSpected of prejudice when I

affirm that of all saddening, maddening objects in

nature, none is so bad as a defiled river. It is never

so offensive as at the present season, when the wealth

of vegetation is at its height, and life is at its best

JULY 157

and most abundant everywhere, down to the very
verge of the poisonous flood. It is the old story of
corruptio optimi; just as there is no more lovable,
irresistibly attractive object in the landscape than a
clear running river, so there is none so hideously de-
pressing than a polluted one. Grass may be grimy,
trees cankered and smirched, yet these renew their
brief verdure every spring, and for a while make brave
show in the sunlight; but there is no kindly season
for the poisoned stream. Month after month it rolls
its inky flood, spewing tainted foam in the rapids and
greasy scum in the deeps; no dancing ephemerids
haunt its sullen wave, no waterfowl its reedless banks ;
its never ending office is to bear an obscene freight
of drowned puppies and cats, evil rags and (unloveliest
flotsam of civilisation) torn newspapers. It was bad
enough when, as happened in 1894, not for the first
time, the sudden release of mineral waste from Dal-
mellington pits swept havoc down the channel of
Burns's Bonny Doon. Thousands of salmon and trout
were destroyed in a single night ; but at least that was
a transitory calamity. Doon now runs once more with
a current as limpid, and sings a melody as sweet, as
she did when Coel Hen, irreverently known among
ourselves as Old King Cole, reigned in that land. But
how many of our English and Scottish streams, not
less richly fraught with historic and poetic association
than the Doon, have been turned permanently into
cloacce, sickening to gods and men ! Even in Ireland,
where there are no mines and few manufactures,

158 RIVER POLLUTION

hundreds of leagues of splendid angling water have
been ruined by permitting flax to be steeped in the
streams.

They tell us that the Legislature has provided a
remedy, but apparently it is not one easily set in
motion. It is not much more than a couple of years
since the Board of Trade sent down the Inspector of
Fisheries to Leeds to receive a deputation from York-
shire anglers on the subject of river pollution. Dele-
gates attended from Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, and
Scarborough; those from Hull, York, and Wakefield
were unable to be present. Heaven only knows the
aggregrate number of anglers represented by these
delegates; but those from Sheffield alone claimed to
be the mouthpiece of no less than seven thousand
' organised anglers ' — seven thousand contemplative
men in one city !

These 'organised anglers' claim to have as much
right to clean streams as to clean streets; perhaps
they might have put it more strongly, inasmuch as
it is the nature of a stream to be pure and that of a
street to be foul. If the river is polluted, it is owing
to the act of a manufacturer or the neglect of a
municipality. In either case, said the 'organised
anglers,' the power that insists on our streets being
clean should enforce ' Mundella's Act ' for the purifica-
tion of rivers. It is not fair to ask the contemplative
man, who is generally far from affluent, to interrupt
his contemplation in order to sue an opulent owner of
dyeworks or a powerful corporation.

JULY 159

Bad as things are in Yorkshire, as any traveller by
the Midland or Great Northern lines may see for
himself, they cannot be in the last stage of hopeless-
ness, seeing that a single town in that county boasts of
seven thousand avowed anglers. If there is a great
deal to restore, there is also a great deal to preserve ; it
ought to be done ; it is worth encountering a great deal
of worry and expense to save such a means of recreation
for an artisan population.

LXI

If the truth must be told, these Yorkshire anglers
are competitive rather than contemplative, as any one
may see by glancing down the columns of competitive
the Fishing Gazette. Angling for roach, Anglers
chub, and other coarse fish is a fine exercise of patience
and a few other virtues; but it becomes just a trifle
insipid unless extraneous excitement is imported by
the addition of stakes. Then your game of patience
turns into piquet ; and so long as matches are decided
and stakes won by the weight of coarse fish captured,
no harm is done ; for, besides the enormous reproductive
powers of such fish, in England, at least, a statutory
annual close-time has been established. Unluckily,
the killing of trout has been made in Scotland a
matter of prize-winning. Almost daily is the sacred
bosom of Loch Leven desecrated by this ignoble
rivalry ; and the hallowed founts of Ettrick and Yarrow
are incessantly ransacked with an ardour certainly not
born of the sport offered by the wretched fishlets which

160 COMPETITIVE ANGLERS

are creeled. Shameful to say, there is no close-time
for breeding trout in Scottish waters. In many
districts the open fishings are rendered worthless to
fair anglers by the miserable snigglers who destroy
gravid and unseasonable fish all through the winter
months.

august

LXII

THE angler who falls under the fatal witchery of the
dry fly undergoes a serious metempsychosis. He learns
the deeper ecstasy of his art, but gone are
the simple delights of ' chuck-and-chance-it.'
Henceforward he still may be found drifting on
highland loch or wandering beside lowland burn, when
the south wind blows its softest under summer clouds,
and the air hums with gentle pipe of heather flies and
the drowsy base of the gairey bee; but he will be
obviously listless, killing the time till he may return
to the worship of his new mistress. Nothing rightly
stirs his nerves but the even oily flow of a southern
chalk-stream, pellucid as the air itself; the full blaze
of noontide ; great brown trout with eyes in their tails
— nay, in every spot in their skins — sucking down the
floating duns softly — oh! so softly — or fanning them-
selves on shallow sofas of water-crowfoot, inviting a
trial of cunning more subtle than their own.

How they hate man and every trace of him, those
precociously wise trout ! Let but incautious footfall or
gleam of varnished cane (why do we use shiny rods ?)
betray his presence, and how they fly ! Not merely in

L

162 SUBAQUEOUS LIFE

terror, but with something that only can be expressed
by the Scottish word ' scunner ' — a mixture of hatred,
fear, and loathing, such as we feel for an unclean insect.
Often you may see a goodly fish taking fly after fly out
of the mimic fleet that floats above him, dimpling the
surface in a degree out of all proportions to his dimen-
sions. You deftly lodge your lure, a perfect image of
the natural insect, a yard and a half above him ; neatly
cocked, it swims in a right line to his lair; he is
deceived, as well he may be, and quietly moves to meet
it; his jaws are on the point of parting to admit it;
suddenly he wheels with tumultuous swirl and darts
away. You hear him distinctly exclaim, 'Oh my
Golly ! look at the gut ! ' Other trout again make no
show of vulgar terror, but simply cease rising, and
efface themselves in convenient sidings of weeds.

Lxin

The event in the day of every trout fisher, but
especially of the dry-fly fisher, is the rise of fly. Every-
subaqueous thing hinges on that ; but how variable, how
Life uncertain it is! This is greatly borne in
upon one in this month of August — of all others the
worst hi the season. There are hours in every day of
every month when not a fin stirs ; in August there is
often plenty of stir, but of that exasperating kind
known as 'smutting,' when the fish are feeding on
insects so minute and multitudinous that it is hopeless
to present a counterfeit. At such times happy is he
who has stufied into a corner of his bag such a treasure

AUGUST 163

as Professor Miall's Natural History of Aquatic Insects,
which will help him to understand what a marvellous
transaction the 'rise' really is, and what incredibly
complex and delicate changes are undergone by minute
organisms in passing from larva to imago. Most of
them can only be followed through the microscope, but
a simple pocket lens suffices to reveal many beauties
and more horrors. Yes, horrors; for most of these
gauzy fabrics are creatures of prey, armed with infinite
variety of murderous weapons, and leading lives of
ceaseless treachery, carnage, and rapine. The business
carried on beneath the glassy surface of the stream and
in the shining shallows of the pond is one of relent-
less cruelty. Tennyson, always a trustworthy guide to
nature, has dwelt on the beauty of some water-side
episodes : —

' To-day I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie ;
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk ; from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings : like gauze they grew,
Through crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.'

No description could be at once more faithful and more
poetic ; but what bard has dared to describe what went
before? Dragon-flies, unlike most insects hatched
under water, pass through no chrysalis or pupa stage.
The hideous larva creeps out of the ditch where it was
spawned, and is transfigured straightway into the
gorgeous fly; yet by help of a moderate lens — even

164 SUBAQUEOUS LIFE

with the naked eye — there can be traced hi the perfect
insect the cruel features and crawling legs of its former
state. The larvae of all dragon-flies (Odonata) are
distinguished by a peculiar apparatus covering the
mouth like a mask. They are sluggish creatures,
crawling on mud or weeds, and slowly swimming,
depending on their dingy coloration to enable them
to lie in wait for passing insects. Some of them have
the power of making a pounce forward by the sudden
ejection of a jet of water from their tails, but most of
them rely on stealth and the mask for making captures.
This mask can be shot out swiftly like a jointed arm,
bearing a formidable prehensile weapon, armed with a
pair of sharp pincers or toothed jaws. Woe to the
luckless Chironomus or ephemerid that comes within
reach of this terrible trap ! There could hardly be a
greater contrast between two stages of the same life as
exists between the skulking, inactive larva of repulsive
aspect, and the darting, soaring, glittering dragon-fly.
Yet both are equally voracious; the perfect insect
generally will be found to have his mouth stuffed with
small flies caught in hawking.

Most aquatic larvae have hideous forms and forbidding
features. Take, for instance, one of the commonest
and most rapacious — the Dytiscus, one of the water-
beetles. Seizing its prey with a pair of sharp, curved
mandibles, the blood of the victim flows down grooves
on the inner sides of these, and trickles into the
corners of the mouth, after which the Dytiscus some-
times devours the solid portion of the carcase. The

AUGUST 165

larva of the great water-beetle (Hydrophilus), largest
of all British coleoptera except the stag beetle, is even
more loathsome to look on, and few amateurs would
care to handle it.

Many of these Coleoptera have the objectionable
faculty of discharging foetid fluid from various parts of
their bodies, which secures them from interference,
whether of meddlesome man or of hungry fish and
birds. Nevertheless, the structure of these creatures
well repays examination. So perfect is the adaptation
of means to end, that one is tempted sometimes to feel
dissatisfied with the mechanism of the human frame.
The swimming legs of the minute Gyrinus, or merry-
go-round, are most elaborately and masterly inventions,
with provision for feathering the little oars, and intricate
apparatus for shipping them. Watching a swarm of
these steely little dots whirling on the surface of some
back-water, one reflects how incalculably swift must
be the volition directing the movements of these
complex limbs, and incessantly altering the course
steered.

On the other hand, how strangely imperfect seems
the arrangement whereby creatures hatched, grown,
and living constantly in the water cannot separate
dissolved oxygen for their own consumption, as fish
do, out of the surrounding medium, but, like whales,
must be visiting the surface perpetually for a renewal
of the supply. For this reason, those aquatic larvae
which have to pass through a motionless pupa stage,
mostly crawl out of the water and bury themselves in

166 THE GRIBBLE

moist earth to await their final transformation. Certain
beetles, however, have hit upon devices for avoiding
these constant trips to the surface with all their
attendant risks. Donacia crassipes is equipped with
two spines far back on the abdomen, with a little
spiracle or breathing hole at the root of each. The
organs of insects, be it observed, have a bewildering
knack of appearing in those parts of the person where
they are least expected, and there is nothing unusually
heterodox in carrying nostrils on the exterior of the
stomach. This insect frequents the roots of water-
lily and other succulent aquatics, knowing that such
roots contain spaces filled with atmospheric air. The
Donacia, while feeding, probes the roots with its spines,
tapping the air reservoirs, and breathing in their
contents through the spiracles.

LXIV

The Donacia only affords one out of ten thousand

examples of marvellous adaptation of structure to the

•me wants of minute animals. Nobody can guess

Gribbie jlow manv ages have rolled by since the
primeval Donacia was first supplied with spines, but
lately there has come to the knowledge of telegraphists
an instance of adaptation accomplished within less
than half a century. No material, perhaps, has in-
creased so enormously in importance to manufacture
in recent times as have indiarubber and guttapercha.
At no very distant time it was unknown in the
manufactured state; but, not to mention a thousand

AUGUST 167

other uses to which it is applied, its insulating pro-
perties have made it indispensable to electrical science,
its waterproof properties to our comfort, its resilient
powers to bicyclists and carriage folk ; while last, but
not least, golfers would be parlously embarrassed had
they to fall back on the balls stuffed with feathers,
costing 3s. 6d. each, which contented our forefathers.
But it has remained quite unknown till lately that
any animal existed with digestive powers equal to a
diet of guttapercha. Such a prodigy has now been
brought to light in the form of a minute marine
organism, known as the gribble, which of late years
has wrought extraordinary mischief to the insulating
covers of the conducting wires hi submarine cables.
For many years after the inauguration of submarine
telegraphy no damage was done to the insulating
material, which was simply sheathed in strong iron
wire. The gribble had not discovered the excellence
of guttapercha as food. Now, however, gribbles are
better educated. Gribbles creep between the protect-
ing wire and devour hundreds of miles of guttapercha,
leaving the copper conductors unprotected, and, of
course, destroying the communication. It has become
necessary to wrap the cables throughout their length
with brass tape, which at present is found effective in
defeating the attacks of the most insidious gribble.
But the curious question remains — What did gribbles
feed on before the sea bottom was spread with gutta-
percha ? to which it is as difficult to supply an answer
as to the old one — What do midges bite when there

168 INTERNAL PAEASITES

are no full-blooded men and sweet young ladies on the
moors?

LXV

People who pry into the structure and habits of the
humbler forms of life bring to light some strange
internal domestic histories. Zoology has been ex-
Parasites tended into so many ramifications that it is
impossible for any single individual to explore many
of them for himself. He must rely on the guidance
of the experts who have devoted themselves to the
investigation of separate provinces — the only way in
which any advance can be made in science beyond its
present stage. Perhaps the subject which possesses
least temptation for the average amateur is the study
of those revolting groups of animals which take up
their abode within the bodies of man and other
animals. Nevertheless, some general acquaintance
must be had of these creatures if any idea is to be
obtained of the versatility, complexity, and economy
displayed in the scheme of nature. No better general
view of these internal pirates could be presented than
has been done in a recent volume of the Cambridge
Natural History — a publication which, when com-
plete, will constitute the standard British authority on
animal life. Messrs. Gamble and Shipley — thoroughly
competent and trustworthy guides — have dealt herein
with the endoparasitic groups, and it is worth over-
coming the horror which this class of parasite, above
all others, excites in the ordinary reader, in order to

AUGUST 169

hear some of the strangest characteristics of animal
existence. I dare not quote more than one example,
for fear of shocking tender constitutions, and that shall
not be one of which human beings have to dread the
attacks, for the creature depends only on the frog and
a water-snail as its hosts. It is one of the Nematodes
or threadworms (Rhabdonema nigrovenosum), of which
the disgusting life-history begins when it is hatched
within the body of its mother. The young brood
devour her internal organs, and having accomplished
her destruction, escape into the water as free creatures.
The next change comes when one of these matricides
is swallowed by a frog ; it makes its way directly into
the lungs, where it grows to be a worm an inch long.
Though itself the offspring of two parents, this worm
is now a protandrous hermaphrodite, and generates a
number of embryos of two distinct sexes. These em-
bryos escape through the alimentary canal of the frog,
taking up their abode in the excrement, where the sordid
cycle begins over again. The peculiarity of all this is,
not the alternation of generations — that is far from
uncommon — but that a sexual free-living form should
alternate with a hermaphrodite parasitic one.

LXVI

THE flowers of early summer have sunk out of sight,
but their places are filled with blossom not less varied
Autumn or brilliant. The rosebay willow-herb has
Flowers run t0 the top of its tall ladder and vanished
in a cloud of fluffy seeds. Nowhere can this pretty
weed be seen in such perfection as in some of the
cuttings on the London and South- Western Railway
between Alton and Winchester. Rooted in the dry
chalk, its petals take a deeper stain of rose than when
it grows in woods and moist places; and in order to
preserve its balance on the vertical sides of the cutting,
it has to adopt a more compact habit of growth than is
seen elsewhere. Thistles of every kind have parted
with their sculptured formality, and every breeze blows
them into further dishevelment. But there is plenty
of beauty still

I spent some time this morning (1895) admiring the
rich tangle of an osier-bed on the Itchen. Here was the
later willow-herb (Epilobium hirsutum), spangled with
carmine ; the meadow-sweet, with creamy corymbs as
fragrant as on midsummer day ; white convolvulus ;
bitter-sweet, bearing purple and yellow flowers mingled

SEPTEMBER 171

with its scarlet berries ; white valerian and pink hemp
agrimony ; yellow marsh Lysimachia and crimson loose-
strife— all these be flowers of stature. Of more lowly
growth are the St. John's worts, golden elecampane,
and violet skullcap. This last, however, is not the six-
inch dwarf one has seen in the shingle beside a High-
land loch; here, heat and moisture have encouraged
it to a height of a couple of feet. The glow of colour
and the rich setting of reeds and other foliage are what
the eye may revel in with content for a long time.

Then the hedge dividing the osiers from the road is
draped with graceful briony and wild clematis. Why
is this British clematis, with its wan, inconspicuous
flowers, called traveller's joy ? It is the poor relation of
the brilliant exotic species, and there are showier herbs
in which wayfarers might be expected to take more
delight. Across the road yawns a deserted chalk-pit
(not the one where the red-backed shrike nested), its
entrance guarded by an array of stately mulleins —
shafts of sulphur-coloured flowers rising from great
cushions of grey velvet leaves, broidered round with
wild verbena, scabious of lavender hue, and viper's
bugloss of intense azure. Farther in there are clusters
of the quaint teazle, still carrying its cupped leaf axils
full of the shower that fell three days ago. The hollow
wood beyond is gay with scarlet fruit-spikes of cuckoo-
pint which flowered in April, and beside the river margin
the great water-dock has tossed a sanguine spray of
seed-vessels far above its noble foliage. Perhaps in no
other part of England, notwithstanding the extraordi-

172 AUTUMN FLOWERS

nary variety of its soil, could there be produced such a
varied company of autumn flowers as are gathered here
in the space of half an acre, between the marshy osier-
bed and the dry chalk-pit.

The great blue salvia (Salvia patens) is not un-
common as a bedding-plant in our gardens, and its
splendid azure blossoms are a noble adornment to
autumnal borders. But it is only in the west that it
can be treated as a hardy herbaceous plant. There is
one under the window of my bedroom which has never
failed us during eighteen years, though it has never
received the slightest protection. This salvia possesses
a beautiful mechanism to secure cross - fertilisation.
Insert a stem of grass or a hairpin between the lips
of the flower, and push it gently down the throat,
and you will see the long stamens move down from
the upper lobe of the corolla so as to deposit ripe
pollen on the back of the supposed insect visitor. The
honey glands lie far down at the base of the pistil, and
our bumble-bees find it very difficult to reach it, for
they are corpulent, and the passage is narrow. In
Mexico, the native country of this plant, no doubt it is
visited either by some insect of slenderer build or by
humming-birds. But if our bumble-bees have no waists
to speak of, they have brains ; and they have discovered
the trick of biting through the neck of the flower,
opposite the honey store, and sucking it without further
trouble. Some years ago a new industry sprang up in
Buckinghamshire. Lads were sent to collect bumble-
bees alive, for which they received fourpence a-piece.

SEPTEMBER 173

Nobody could guess what these were wanted for, till it
came out that the bees were intended for exportation
to New Zealand, where red clover always died out for
want of bumbles to fertilise it. The first cargo died of
heat in crossing the tropics, but a second consignment
fared better, and acclimatisation is said to have been
successfully carried out. Now if the blue salvia had
any agricultural value with us, we should have to
import its suitable insect visitor, seeing that our crafty
bumbles have learnt how to steal honey without dis-
turbing the pollen cells. It is a curious fact that this
trick is not universally known among the bees. In
some gardens all the blossoms will be found to have
their throats cut — in others, none. I ought to add
that I attribute this burglary to bumble-bees without
having detected one in the act of committing it, but I
have watched them treating the long spurs of toadflax
in the same way.

LXVII

Talking of Buckinghamshire brings to mind a lay
which I used to hear chanted when I was a boy,
and am never likely to hear again. It A Buckingham-
went to a sleepy kind of tune, and was s^eBaiiad
a great favourite in wayside taverns in the long cool
evenings.

< THE SAD STORY OF WILLIAM SMAIL

' 'Twere in the woods o' Bookenhamshire,

Right-fal-ooral-ooral-ee,
'Twere in the woods o' Bookenhamshire,
Right-fal-ooral-ee,

174 A BUCKINGHAMSHIRE BALLAD

Three keepers' housen stood three-square,
About a mile from each other they were,
Ordained were they to keep the deer,
Eight-fal-ooral-ee.

' There was three lads o' cunnin' an5 skill,

Right-fal-ooral-ooral-ee,
There was three lads o' cunnin' an' skill,

Right-fal-ooral-ee ;

And they swore as how they'd have their will
Upon the deer in Butson's Hill,
And as many as e'er they pleased they 'd kill,

Right-fal-ooral-ee.

' The night were dark, the wind were low,
Right-fal-ooral-ooral-ee,

The night were dark, the wind were low,
Right-fal-ooral-ee ;

And these three lads full well did know

The tracks whereon the deer did go ;

And they made a fat bouck cry " Hullo ! '
Right-fal-ooral-ee.

' The yoongest of them were Bill Smail,

Right-fal-ooral-ooral-ee,
The youngest of them were Bill Smail,

Right-fal-ooral-ee ;
And just as he hopped o'er the pale
The keeper he cotched 'un without fail,
And carried 'un off to Bookenham jail,
Right-fal-ooral-ee.

' Now Sessions was o'er and 'Sizes near,
Right-fal-ooral-ooral-ee,

Now Sessions was o'er and 'Sizes near,
Right-fal-ooral-ee.

The keepers they did roundly swear

Bill were the lad as stole the deer.

Says he, " My Lord, I never were there ! '
Right-fal-ooral-ee.

SEPTEMBER 175

' Now William Smail in prison is placed,

Right-fal-ooral-ooral-ee,
Now William Smail in prison is placed,

Right-fal-ooral-ee ;
And there he will not make a feast,
For bread and water will he taste,
For a matter o' six months at laste,
Right-fal-ooral-ee.

' Now there 's a moral in this tale,

Right-fal-ooral-ooral-ee,
Now there 's a moral in this tale,

Right-fal-ooral-ee ;
The law agin ye will prevail,
And you '11 be cotched like William Smail,
And carried off to Bookenham jail,

Right-fal-ooral-ee.'

Now, I do not know how old this song may be, but it
has all the best traits of ballad literature. The topo-
graphy is as tersely set forth, the weather as scrupu-
lously described, the leading characters sketched in as
firmly, as they are in that splendid and undoubtedly
ancient lay, ' Jamie Telfer o' the Fair Dodhead.' De-
pend upon it, if this bard had lived near the Debatable
Land, and, instead of mere deer-stealing had for a
theme the Border raiding, with its dash of chivalry
and patriotism to gild the sordid business of it, he
would have been the 'darling of Sir Walter Scott and
Bishop Percy. He engages all our sympathies with
unlucky Bill, who, as the ' yoongest of them/ was pro-
bably least to blame ; still, one feels the propriety of
ceasing, as soon as he is convicted, to speak of him
familiarly as Bill; it is more than the exigencies of

176 INSECTS AND HAKD WINTERS

metre that causes him to be mentioned formally as
William Smail. The moral, perhaps, is a trifle startling in
its sweeping assumption of culpability in the audience ;
but then doubtless the poet connaissait son monde.

LXVIII

The common belief that hard winters are beneficial
to farmers and gardeners because of the destruction

. to insect life, has received a severe shock in
insects ana

Hard 1895. The foregoing winter has been re-
wmters corde(} authoritatively by the Royal Meteoro-
logical Society as the severest since 1814, the lowest
temperature registered in England being 11 degrees
below zero — 43 degrees Fahrenheit of frost — yet all
through the summer there was an unusual abundance
of butterflies, and Miss Ormerod reports officially that
injurious insects show no signs of diminution in that
season. The second or autumn hatches of butterflies
was unusually great. The pretty blues were never
more numerous on Hampshire downs than they were
in 1895 ; whereas in 1896, after a winter of extraordi-
nary mildness, they were remarkably scarce. In Sep-
tember of the former year, the brimstone, a rare insect
in autumn, unique among British butterflies in the
shape of its posterior wings, was flitting about the
osier-bed above described, recalling the months of the
spotted orchis and primrose; and peacocks and red
admirals — pride of the shortening days— came out un-
usually early. In mid- August, too, appeared the fore-
runners of a welcome visitation of the clouded yellow

SEPTEMBEE 177

(Colias edusa) to Hampshire. This pretty fly, the
swiftest on the wing of all British butterflies, generally
comes in troops when it comes at all, but it is most
capricious. It is more permanent in the southern
counties than farther north, where many seasons pass
without the occurrence of a single specimen; then
suddenly, without apparent cause, as last in 1892, the
whole island, as far as Inverness, is besprinkled with
this bright and active butterfly. It is pretty well
accepted now that none of its chrysalides survive a
British winter, and that the autumn broods are the
offspring of parents drifted hither from the Continent
by the east winds of spring.

LXIX

Any tree or shrub that will flower freely in London
deserves to be mentioned with honour. At the present
time (September 1895) there has been for ABeautiftll
some weeks a fine plant of the shrubby London
Hibiscus (Althcea frutex or Hibiscus Syria-
cus) in great beauty in one of the front gardens of
Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. It is about six feet high, and
its sprays are loaded with lovely white blossoms, each
as large as a Shirley poppy, with a blotch of deep
maroon at the base of each petal. Its beauty is
enhanced by contrast with the dark buildings around,
and says as plain as print to passers-by, ' Householders,
please copy.' Unluckily, most householders, in the
west end at least, have fled from London by this time.
M

178 THE EXTINCTION OF WILD ANIMALS

LXX

Company promotion, one would have said, had long

since touched every corner of every field of enterprise,

but it has been reserved for the autumn of

The Extinc-
tion of Wild 1895 to witness the launch of a scheme not

likely to have many rivals. The arena of
operations is South Africa, yet this project has nothing
to do with mining, agriculture, or colonisation. It is
not philanthropic either, but philozootic ; its object
being to preserve from extinction some of the nobler
forms of life which are disappearing so fast before
advancing civilisation. It is announced that the
British South Africa Company have placed two hundred
thousand acres in Mashonaland at the disposal of the
Society for a big game preserve, as soon as they can
show themselves in a financial position to enclose and
maintain it. £15,000 are offered in £1 shares, and the
names of those gentlemen who have joined the council
are a sufficient guarantee that the money will be rightly
applied.

In truth, it is a sorrowful story that comes to us from
South Africa. The orgies of slaughter that finished off
the magnificent herds of bison in North America were
more speedy in effect than the steady retreat of the
South African fauna before the white settlers ; but the
total suppression of some of the most interesting species
cannot be far off, unless our people follow the example
of the United States Government in providing sanctuary
for them. Already, it seems, that the great white rhino-
ceros is beyond recall ; at most not more than half a

SEPTEMBER 179

dozen individuals survive of the mighty herds that
Gordon Gumming encountered in the 'forties. It will
be a lasting disgrace if the giraffe is allowed to perish
in like manner, but this is imminent — at least south of
the Zambesi. The mountain zebra may be found now
only in the most remote mountain ranges ; while the
bontebok, the blesbok, and the black wildbeest, all of
which Gordon Gumming found in countless hordes fifty
years ago in what is now the Orange Free State, must
be reckoned at this day at a few scores each. They
have been ruthlessly massacred for their skins. Of the
queerly-shaped bontebok, travellers used to stand amazed
at the prodigious multitude within a relatively small
strip of country ; now, none are left but one small herd,
preserved near Cape Agulhas by two Dutch families
named Van Breda and Van der Byl.

The Society for the Protection of Birds appeal to
similar sympathies to those which the Company above
referred to rely on to bring them shareholders. In a
recent leaflet this excellent Society deals with that
fashion in ladies' bonnets which makes the wearing of
bird-of-Paradise plumes indispensable. These are com-
monly mixed with so-called ' ospreys,' which are really
the bridal dress of two species of white heron. The
iniquity of the traffic in ' ospreys ' has been shown to
rest on the fact that these coveted plumes are only dis-
played at the breeding season ; indeed, they are not
fully developed on the parent birds till the young ones
are hatched. Hence the nesting colonies have to be
attacked at the very season when humanity should

180 THE EXTINCTION OF WILD ANIMALS

decree protection to beautiful and harmless birds.
Grievous is the description by eyewitnesses of the
collection of these plumes : rough fellows make a raid
on the heronry, shooting down the old birds, tearing
out the plumes, and flinging aside their victims, often
still alive, to perish miserably in sight of their starving
broods. The heartlessness of fashion arises from its
ignorance; few ladies trouble themselves to inquire
about the source where these favourite ornaments are
obtained, being content to be told that it is in the
very last mode ; but still fewer, I firmly believe, would
countenance it, did they once understand what the
traffic involved.

As to birds-of-Paradise, the best skins used to be
had easily for twelve or fourteen shillings ; but the price
has risen now to twenty-five or thirty shillings, owing to
the growing scarcity of the birds. The most coveted
species (Paradisea apoda) dwells in New Guinea and
the Papuan Islands ; but it is impossible to obtain such
fine specimens as were common a few years ago, because
the males are all killed for the market before they reach
the age of three or four years, when their plumage
attains perfection. The German Government have set
us a good example by decreeing the strict preservation
of the bird-of- Paradise in their territory in New Guinea ;
perhaps it is too much to hope that the British and
Dutch Governments will follow suit.

In making appeals for mercy to be shown towards
dwindling races of creatures, it is insincere to base them
on the grounds of the sacredness of animal life. Let

SEPTEMBER 181

us be perfectly honest in this matter, and explain that
the real reason for keeping strange or beautiful animals
in existence is solely and simply that this world may
lose nothing that amuses or interests us who have to
live in it. Nothing can be worse than the example
set by Nature herself in the matter of reverence for life,
whether it be in noble or humble organisms. Tens of
thousands of mammoths must have perished simul-
taneously by a widespread murrain, catastrophe, or
meteorological crisis, to account for the abundance of
their remains in Northern Europe ; the end of the
great auk was precipitated by the collapse of their last
breeding station into the ocean ; and as for the insect
world, no one can have passed beyond the threshold
of inquiry into that without being horrified by the
systematic cruelty practised by one species upon
another. Cruelty apart, the wastefulness is appalling.
Out of sixteen to twenty-five thousand larvse hatched
from the eggs of a single oil beetle (Meloe) during an
ordinary season, perhaps not more than three or four
attain the perfect form. All the rest perish, and are
intended to perish, victims to vicissitudes which are
part of the deliberate design of their life history. It is
true that the precautions to secure the perpetuation of
every species are infinite and astonishing ; but it is part
of the plan that the Destroyer of delights and Sunderer
of companies should be at work incessantly.

182 IN A DEER FOREST

LXXI

Blessed — for ever blessed, even to the third and
fourth generation of quill-drivers — be the wight who

in a Deer invented the fountain pen ! I suppose every
Forest SCribe uses one now, just as naturally as
every sportsman his breechloader. Yet am I assuredly
the first to wield one in this particular spot, for I am
lying (September 28, 1895) among acres of boulders on
the top of Beinn Eibhinn— ' the beautiful hill '—3700
feet above the sea-level, in Corrour forest. In spite,
however, of the facilities of the fountain pen, I shall
have to make a fair copy of this before it goes to the
printer, for it is blowing three-quarters of a gale, and is
very dark.

It is passing cold withal, and it may be asked why I
choose to write within a wet cloud, seeing that a couple
of hundred feet below all is sunshine and soft air. From
time to time I get glimpses through the gloom of Strath
Ossian, bathed in golden light, with Loch Gulbhainn
like a clasp of frosted silver, and Gulbhainn Water
winding like a chain to join the distant Spean. Well,
I am compelled to lie shivering here for an indefinite
time to come, for on either hand are deer; one lot
easily to be approached, but containing nothing worth
a bullet; the other, with several praiseworthy stags,
feeding very slowly to ground where it may be possible
to get a shot at them. Meanwhile, there is plenty of
company. Ptarmigan are purring, growling, and chuck-
ling within forty yards of my lair ; a blue hare (not
really more blue than Buckingham Palace in a fog)

SEPTEMBER 183

lobs slowly past and disappears in the mist; two or
three golden plover signal to each other in heartbroken
notes; and a raven flaps heavily along the hill-brow,
coarsely croaking. There is nothing very cheerful
except the ptarmigan, and heaven only knows how
these jolly birds keep up their spirits. They are very
showy just now in silver grey coats and white facings,
intermediate between summer and winter plumage.
There is no eagle on the hill to-day, or even they would
not be so lively.

It is a marvel how these fine birds make out a living.
The hill- top is like a rough sea- beach at low tide,
nearly all stones, and between them only a carpet of
weather-wan moss, a few crowberry plants, alchemilla,
saxifrage, stag's horn, and scattered blades of wiry
grass. We are far above the heather line here ; even at
midsummer there must be precious little to eat, except
the delicious cloudberries, and the finger of winter has
seared the vegetation already. Yet the ptarmigan
never think of going to fatter fields; they are always
plump and contented. How comes it that, although
English plains, with all their wealth of seed, produce no
game-bird bigger than a partridge (pheasants being an
importation), these awful wastes are peopled by fowl so
much bigger ?

But life in high regions is full of interesting puzzles.
Wheresoever the carcase is, there the bird called
'eagles' in the text will be found gathered together;
but what do they when there is no carcase ? Last year
a stag was shot one morning on Beinn Bhreac (2971

184 IN A DEEE FOREST

feet), a hill not very far from that on which I am lying.
It was gralloched, and left till the afternoon, when the
carcase was found to be covered — literally darkened —
with clouds of blowflies, while the paunch and entrails
a few yards off were swarming with yellow dungflies.
Yet not one of these had been visible till something
was provided worthy of their attention.

There are several highest inhabited houses both in
Scotland and England, about as many, it has been
calculated, as, if put together, would reach half the
length of Pont Street; but the lodge in this forest
beats them all, being 1725 feet (O.M.) above sea-level;
too high for the potato, though that produces a fair
crop at the head stalker's house, which is 500 feet
lower. In fine weather, when the inmates are all
abroad, and the doors and windows stand invitingly
open, unexpected guests sometimes make free of the
premises. A young lady, entering the smoking-room
one day when the sportsmen were out, heard a scuffle
under the sofa. Believing it to be one of the dogs, she
looked to see which it was, and found a grouse, which
had made its way in from the moor. On another
occasion, a blue hare was found strolling about the

It is a mighty solitude this, just on the watershed
of Rannoch. The streams flowing west and north find
their way into Loch Linnhe, while those turning east-
ward go to swell the Tummel and the Tay. There is
a foot and bridle path through the forest, giving access
from Rannoch to Glen Spean and Fort William by the

SEPTEMBER 185

shores of Loch Treig ; but that is even more deserted
than of yore since the making of the West Highland
Railway. But one sees some odd things here occa-
sionally. Early one September morning lately (1896)
I was riding along Loch Ossian on my way to the hill
where I was to stalk. There is a shred of old wood-
land beside that fair lake ; the firs have all disappeared,
but there remain birch, rowan, and alder along a couple
of miles of steep hillside. It was a divine morning ; the
slanting rays lit up the golden spray of the birches
and the intense crimson of the rowan leaves, and
through these gleamed the pale azure of the lake.
Grousecocks crowed crousely beside the track ; the
early mists wreathed themselves fantastically around
Beinn-na-Lap ; it was all so lovely that I could not
but loiter, and the old pony picked his way as he
pleased along the rough path. But my reverie was
roughly broken by a violent shy on the part of the
usually sedate animal. He might well be surprised.
Lying beside the path, under the steep bank, was a
tramp in a drunken sleep. Not considering myself
under any obligation to disturb him, I gathered up
my reins and passed on, as heartlessly as any Levite,
speculating how the devil had managed to put whisky
in this poor waif's way in that wilderness, the nearest
public-house being at Rannoch station, fully ten rough
miles away. Somehow that tramp dwelt a good deal
in my thoughts. He had a peculiarly long nose of
intense fiery red; he was pretty comfortably dressed,
and there was the painful contrast between his unlovely

186 IN A DEER FOREST

condition and the pure morning scenery. Moreover,
I noticed as I shuffled past that a book lay on the wet
earth under his elbow.

When I returned that way at nightfall, the tramp
had moved on, but he had left his book behind him.
It was Anne of Geier stein.

HDctofcer

LXXII

ALL kinds of stonecrop possess peculiar attractions for
bees and butterflies, owing to their abundant secretion
of honey. Among the summer flowering

. jf . . . f „ , . Stonecrops

species the crimson variety of Rectum spumum

is the most showy, and should be planted plentifully
near beehives. But at this season of the year one of
the tall-growing kinds, Sedum spectdbile, is by far the
handsomest. It is the latest to flower, and its great
flat rosy corymbs are irresistible to that splendid
autumn butterfly, the red admiral. I have mentioned
already how plentiful butterflies of various sorts have
been this season (1895). Well, this morning I have
been watching a number of these robust insects busy
on the large stonecrop — so busy as to allow me to use
a lens on them. There were no less than sixteen
admirals at work on one group of spectdbile stonecrop.
The honey-bees, however, interfered with them, and
it was curious to see how shrewdly a red admiral would
sheer off at the approach of a bee of less than one-
tenth of his own bulk. Sometimes the butterfly was
too much engaged sucking up sweets to pay attention

188 STONECEOPS

at once ; a quick run and an angry buzz from the bee
awoke him to a sense of the situation, and he cleared
off directly.

Now, how do butterflies learn to dread a bee ? How
do they know that bees are armed ? It can hardly be
by experience, for no butterfly could survive the stab
of a bee's sting. It is part of the mystery enveloping
the intelligence of animals not personally educated by
their parents. One can understand, or at least imagine,
how birds and mammals, sedulous in attention to their
offspring, can communicate to them caution, the fruit
of the experience of countless generations; but the
phases of insect life — the egg abandoned by the parent
— the stages of larva, pupa, and imago — seem specially
calculated to interfere with hereditary knowledge, and
to prohibit the communication of instruction. Instinct
is an obscure, as well as a much misused term ; this
avoidance of bees by butterflies seems to be an instance
of pure instinct, unless, indeed, the countenance of a
bee bears such a malevolent expression that it acts as
a timely warning to the unarmed insect.

To return to stonecrops: let any one who desires
to possess Sedum spurium and spectabile be careful
to get the bright-coloured varieties of each. All are
equally hardy, grow like chickweed, and are easily and
quickly propagated by cuttings or 'pinchings'; but
there are some worthless, dull-coloured varieties which
should be avoided.

OCTOBER 189

LXXIII

From bees to donkeys involves a long step in
zoology, nor is it often that a donkey is such an ass
as to interfere with bees ; nevertheless, bees Bees and
were lately (1895) the agents in producing Donkeys
one of two spectacles which, it used to be said, nobody
had ever seen — a dead donkey or a dead postboy. At
Culmalzie, in Wigtownshire, a young donkey, got
into a blacksmith's garden and overturned two hives.
The evicted tenantry immediately swarmed over the
unlucky animal and stung him to death. Its body
swelled to an enormous size.

LXXIV

One donkey, at least, has made itself famous in
Scottish history. Probably no part of Scotland enjoys
such a charming climate, year in and year cawdor
out, as the broad wedge of champaign lying Castle
between where Findhorn, on the east, rolls his dark
flood from the Monadh Lia, and, on the west, the
miniature salmon-river Nairn hurries to the Moray
Firth. The mild, yet bright and bracing air, is such
as those who have not proved the merits of Nairn as
a sanatorium can scarcely reconcile with the latitude.
This fertile strath, lying between the brown front of
Carn-nan-tri-tighearnan, or the Hill of the Three Lords,
and the sea, was of old the choicest part of the Thane-
dom of Cawdor. The Thane's seat used to be at Nairn
Invernarne, as it used to be called — and his hunt-

190 CAWDOR CASTLE

ing seat was some five miles inland, at Old Cawdor.
But after the fall of the Douglases in 1455, including
Archibald Bell-the-Cat — pretensus comes Moravie —
Thane William resolved to build himself a stronghold
worthy of his dignity and wide possessions. Being of
thrifty habits, he first sat down and counted the cost,
and then collected the funds in hard cash. Next —
so the story goes — he was directed in a dream to bind
the treasure on the back of an ass, turn the animal
loose at Old Cawdor, and found his castle wheresoever
it should lie down. The beast wandered about half a
mile, to a knoll beside the Rierach Burn, whereon
grew three hawthorns: it rubbed its nose against the
first, its tail against the second, and finally lay down
under the third. Round this tree was built the castle
keep; and there, to the everlasting confusion of
sceptics in oneiromancy, remains the old stem to this
day, dry and dead, of course, but still firmly rooted in
the floor, and built into the root of the vault. At its
foot lies the coffer which contained the treasure, heavily
hooped with iron, and not a whit the worse for the
four centuries and a half since it was unbound from
the donkey's back. It is said that the other two
thorn-trees disappeared only during the present century.
The royal licence for building the castle is dated 1454,
a date which rather clashes with the legend that makes
one of the rooms in the keep the scene of the murder
of King Duncan by Macbeth. In the following year,
King James n. issued a warrant empowering the Thane
to dismantle the Norman fortress of Lochindorb, which

OCTOBER 191

Archibald Douglas had fortified against the king.
The iron door now hanging on the keep of Cawdor
came from Lochindorb, borne thither, as you will be
gravely told, across the moors on the back of a High-
land Samson, a statement fully as credible as many
others in Celtic history.

The presence of the essentially Saxon title of ' thane '
in a district so thoroughly Highland in character is
explained by the policy of Malcolm Canmore, an ardent
reformer, who greatly encouraged the settlement of
southern lords within his dominions. The prelude to
the civilisation of this district was the abolition by
royal edict of the Gaelic toiseach, and the substitution
of thanes, charged with the collection of Crown rents
and the administration of justice in the great grain-
producing region of Angus and Moray.

By far the greater part of the massive pile now
known as Cawdor Castle dates from the seventeenth
century. Long before that, the Thanage had passed
by marriage into the Campbell family, where it still
remains. William, eldest son of the seventh Thane,
was lame, so they made a priest of him. His younger
brother, John, married Isabel Ross of Kilravock, and
died, leaving as his sole heiress a daughter, Muriel.
The old Thane and John's four brothers ill might
brook their vast inheritance passing to a girl, and so,
by marriage, into another family. They did what in
them lay ; they nobly tried to disprove Muriel's
legitimacy, but in vain; and about the year 1510, she,
being then twelve years old, married Sir John Camp-

192 CAWDOR CASTLE

bell, son of the second Earl of Argyll. Fourth in
descent from these came John Campbell of Cawdor, a
lunatic, to whom his brother Colin was appointed tutor-
at-law, to administer the estates.

This Colin, having determined to build a large
addition to the castle, set about it in a very amateurish
way, employing no regular architect, and working
without any regular plan. The contract made in
October 1639 with the brothers Nicholson, ' meassounes '
(masons) in Nairn, is refreshingly vague: they are to
' bvild upe and ovtred (clear out) the entrie yet
(entrance gate) just vpone the lewelling of the rest of
the sydwallis (side walls), withe ane licht (window) to
the east and ane tother licht quher the saidis meas-
sounes can best haue the samen.' But it was stipulated
that ' the armes, names, and siferis (cyphers) vpone the
windocks (windows) sal be weill and sufficientlie wrocht
to the said Coleine Campbell, his contentment.'

Colin's confidence in the ' meassounes ' was not mis-
placed : the work is rough, but substantial ; the general
effect is very grand; and the 'entrie yet,' where the
drawbridge still swings between two circular towers, is
so fine that one is tempted to wish for the removal of
four huge wych elms that have been allowed to grow up
in the moat, obscuring the view of the north face of the
building. Colin's son, Sir Hugh, succeeded his uncle
the lunatic, and built the south part of the edifice as
it now stands, and as it appears in Billings's well-known
engraving. This Thane was an industrious correspon-
dent, and some of his letters contain vivid pictures of

OCTOBER 193

the vicissitudes of Highland life in the seventeenth
century. Thus in June 1691 the following: —

'There came two or three parties off Hielanders, one of
them caryed away a great many cattell out of Aitnoch. . . .
The partie was strong, betwixt fiftie and three score. . . .
The nixt partie fell vpon my lands in the more and in the
breas (the moor and braes) off Altherg, when I wass at
Inshoch, and caryed such cattel as they found quit away:
about thirtie head and four piece of horss. . . . The third
partie fell upon my lands of Boath, but then I was at home
and sent my sone Archie and the lightest lads I hade after
them. They were overtaken in the breas of Strathherrick
and brought back. One of their boyes was likewayes catcht
and brought prisner. And just as this letter is a writting, I
have advertisement from severall friends off the brea of
Strathnairn that ther is a partie off five or six score
Lochabber men past by with them, who is like may make
ane onset this night somewher in our breas. If we knew
wher, we would endeavour to buckle a touch with them.'

These light-footed Camerons of Lochaber were ever
the sworn scourges of the prosperous Campbells; and
such were the diversions of a country gentleman two
hundred years ago. As for the ladies, edifying litera-
ture was provided for such of them as had learning;
for Sir Hugh himself was rather bookish, and the
author of An Essay on the Lord's Prayer, published in
1704. The 'Inventar of Lady Calder her Books'
reveals nothing more trivial than The Book of Palm-
istry, The Art of Complaisance, and Ruthven's Ladies'
Cabinet Enlarged ; the bulk of it being made up with
such exhilarating matter as Sighs from Hell, Balm of
Gilead, and Calamy's Divine Meditation.

194 THE FINDHORN AND THE NAIRN

Sir Hugh paid his tailor punctually ; and it is to be
noted that in all the many bills for clothes, there is not
a single instance of tartan or Highland dress.

4 ells black fingrum at £9, 15s £30

| ell fine dito for canons to your breeches . . 0 15

10 J doz. fine black Inglis buttonis .... 3 3

4£ ells fine vermilion for a wescoat at 32s. the ell, . 24 0

1 black Inglis hatt 15 12

— and so on (it is Scots money — a pound being about
equal to one shilling sterling), but of philabegs, plaids,
sporrans, and Highland brooches, there is no mention
in the equipment of this most Highland magnate.

There is a noble view to the north from the top of
Cawdor tower, right across the level carse to the Moray
Firth, and beyond, where Ben Wyvis and the Strath-
conan range gleam with the first snow of October.

LXXV

Hardly could greater contrast be found between two
rivers running so near one another as there is between
those on either side of Cawdor.

Th.6 Find-

horn and The Findhorn, dark and powerful, flowing
aurn through stupendous gorges where inacces-
sible crags rise on either side or on both sides, is the
very ideal of a wild salmon river. It ought to be
second to none in the north ; sad it is to say that it
holds a very poor reputation among anglers. Not very
far above the tideway a flat-bedded rock stretches
crescent-wise across the river-bed, offering an obstacle
practicable to ascending fish only at certain heights of

OCTOBEE 195

water. Below this rock salmon congregate, waiting for
a flood to carry them up; here the nets are plied
incessantly, and it is seldom that any large number
escape to the upper reaches. Nevertheless, being
lately at the shooting-lodge of Drynachan, on the
Findhorn, I started with very high hopes at the top of
one of the most attractive stretches of salmon water I
had ever beheld. My gillie was shy and taciturn ; he
gave me the idea of being sceptical about the presence
of salmon in the river, and too completely soured by
disappointment to encourage delusive hopes in others.
He had not even suggestions to offer as to the sort of
flies most likely to command success.

Left to my own judgment, I mounted a large Durham
ranger, for the water was heavy and dark brown.
Before I had made a dozen casts in the top of the fine
sweeping stream at Ballycrochan, I was in a fish.
There was plenty of room for him to make a grand
fight, but the craven creature ran about in little circles
under the point of the rod, and soon yielded up the
ghost — a brown fish of ten pounds. I hooked three
others in the same pool, and landed two of them —
fourteen pounds and ten pounds — all in little more
than half an hour. Thinks I to myself, I 'm in for a
big thing. Six miles of beautiful water lay below me,
without another rod on it, for the rest of the party
were driving grouse. My fish were not beauties to be
sure, for one was a red kipper, and the other two were
dark baggits ; but, after all, they were salmon, and I
observed airily to my gillie that his back was likely to

196 THE FINDHORN AND THE NAIEN

be sore before night. Still that sickly air of incredulity
— I could have shaken the fellow !

I was to learn the meaning of it. Hour after hour I
thrashed a series of the most enchanting pools and
streams that fond fisher could imagine; darkness
overtook us before we were half-way down to our limit,
and one uncertain touch in the rapid run at Cuilachan
was the only sign of a fish that was vouchsafed to me.
Next day matters were worse. The river was in better
order, but in the course of eight hours' steady fishing I
did not get a single rise.

That cured me of all hankering after the Findhorn.
On the third morning early, I started across the hills
for the Nairn, an insignificant stream compared to the
other great river, but of much higher merit, as it was
my fortune to prove. Substituting a fifteen-foot grilse
rod for the larger one I had been using, I mounted a
small Dandy, and began where a swift clear stream
ran swiftly between steep banks protected by a chevaux-
de-frise of cut brushwood and tree-stems. Ah ! that
fatal brushwood : a bright little fish about eight pounds
weight dashed at the Dandy in mid-stream, and was
fast. My gillie — still the same Lacon — gave no
warning ; I ought to have seen the danger, and run
the salmon down to where the stream broadened out
between shingle banks. But instead of that, I held on
to him, being unwilling to let him down to disturb
fresh water. Many a good fish has owed his liberty to
this mistaken caution. There was, indeed, some excuse
for it in this case, because, owing to the diminutive

OCTOBER 197

volume of the river, one passing down the high bank
would be plainly visible to every creature below. But
it cost me my first fish in the Nairn ; he made a dart
towards the bank under my feet; fouled the brush-
wood; for an agonised moment I beheld his silvery
side flashing within easy reach of the gaff, but Lacon
was not ready ; the gut parted, and all was over.

I adopted different tactics after that, and on that
day and the following enjoyed some of the prettiest
sport that has ever fallen to my lot. The little pools
were very unlike the tenantless casts on the Findhorn ;
they were teeming with salmon; and, what added
greatly to the satisfaction of catching them, they were
all bright and new-run, more like summer fish than
any that might be expected in the first week of
October.

LXXVI

Salmon fishing in a small, rapid stream has a delicate
charm that is lost when the river is so large as to
involve fishing from a boat. All anglers are A Border
agreed about that, yet it is in the Tweed Tower
alone, of all the waters in these islands, that you can
be sure of a proportion of excellent fish in October,
many of them without tinge or tarnish on their silver
coats. Even a month later, many fish carry a good
enough colour, but it must be admitted that they are
so far advanced in a gravid state that they ought to be
let alone. However, as the nets have ruined the spring.

198 A BORDER TOWER

and summer fishing, anglers must be allowed a little
licence in the autumn.

But the charm of Tweed fishing does not rest alone
on the sport. Every hillside, every haugh, is associated
with some story of Border chivalry, and is full of
memories to one who takes the trouble to learn the
simple lore. When Washington Irving first visited
Abbotsford, and Scott took him to the top of the
Delectable Mountains to view the widespread glory
of Lammermuir, Torwoodlee, Ettrick and Teviotdale,
he could hardly believe that this was the actual scene
of enchantment.

' I gazed about me,' he wrote afterwards, ' for a time with
mute surprise, I may almost say with disappointment. I
beheld a mere succession of grey, waving hills, line beyond
line, as far as my eye could reach, monotonous in their
aspect, and so destitute of trees that one could almost see
a stout fly walking along their outline ; and the far-famed
Tweed appeared a naked stream, between bare hills, without
a tree or thicket on its banks. And yet such had been the
magic web of poetry and romance thrown over the whole,
that it had a greater charm for me than the richest scenery
I had ever beheld in England.'

It is true that had we never been drunk of the cup of
Scott's romance, the hills that tower so grandly in his
lays might have remained for us but geological pimples,
the vaunted merse but indifferently drained meadow
ground, the grey peles of Smailholm and Earlstoun but
inconvenient, rudely built country-houses — caruerunt
quia vate sacro ; but nevermore shall one pass through
this land indifferent to the apocalypse which dawned

OCTOBEE 199

with the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Look round from
where I am standing now, on Bemersyde hill, how
familiarity has deepened tender reverence for such
names as

' Ercildoune and Cowdenknowes

Where Homes had ance commanding,
And Drygrange with its milk-white ew es

'Twixt Tweed and Leader standing.
The bird that flies through Kedpath trees

And Gladswood banks each morrow
May chant and sing sweet Leader Haugh,

And bonny howms o' Yarrow.'

In the last journey made by Walter Scott beside his
beloved river, a deeply sorrowing procession passed
close by the ancient tower of Bemersyde, following his
remains to their resting-place in Dryburgh Abbey. In
one respect this fortalice is distinguished among many
scores of others built to protect the Scottish Marches —
namely, that from the time when earliest mention of
it occurs, it has remained in the possession of a single
family. Seven centuries may be reckoned by an ice-
age theorist but as a watch in a geological night ; yet
are there passing few lands held in Scotland at the
present day by the descendants of those who did fealty
for them to Malcolm Canmore. The endurance of the
Haigs of Bemersyde in their primitive home is the
more remarkable because they have never been a
powerful family, nor have they been careful to extend
the originally modest acreage of their territory by
judicious marriages. But it is theirs to boast of the
prophetic charter bestowed by Thomas the Rhymer

200 A BORDER TOWER

before the family of Haig had been a century in
possession —

' Tyde what may betyde,
Haig shall be Haig o' Bemersyde.'1

Of the great feudal families of Tweeddale many have
passed away — Avenel, de Soulis, and Maxwell, de
Vipont, de Vesci and Comyn — either they have died
out or acquired lands in other districts ; the powerful
religious houses also — the Austin Canons of Jedburgh,
the Tironensian monks of Kelso, the Cistercians of
Melrose, and the Premonstratensians of sweet Dryburgh
— have disappeared long ago; but still Haig is Haig
of Bemersyde.

But if the race do not owe their preservation to its
greatness, neither has it to thank its indolence or
obscurity ; its history is an epitome of the vicissitudes
of landowners hi a country constantly on the aggressive
or defensive against a powerful neighbour. The fifth
owner of Bemersyde fought under Wallace at Stirling
Bridge ; the sixth followed Bruce to Bannockburn, and
afterwards met a soldier's death at Halidon Hill ; the
eighth laid down his life with the Douglas on the
moonlight slopes of Otterbourne ; the tenth was killed
at Piperdean; the twelfth and thirteenth fought on
opposite sides at Sauchieburn; the last mentioned,
William Haig, fell with the flower of Scottish chivalry

1 Less complimentary is the paraphrase on this distich applied to
another Border family —

• Whate'er betide, whate'er befa',
There'll aye be gowks at Purves Ha'.'

OCTOBER 201

at Flodden in 1513. In those rare intervals when
slaying was slack in their own country, the sons of
the house sought soldier's fortune on the Continent.
Young James Haig, an officer in garrison at Utrecht
in 1626, writes home to his brother, begging for some
decent clothes, and explaining that the dilapidated
state of his wardrobe interferes sorely against his
promotion : —

'Zou sail take a view of my mother's lettar, where I
intreited her ernestlie to send me over cloathes, in so much
I doe expect a Collar of my colonell ; and to that I be into
ffashion I am ashamed to presoum in the samen. Wharby I
entreit zou, my dear brother, to show her credit in the
samen ; ffor gif echo doe not, I am undone, ffor I am all out
of ffashione. Itt is agenst nattural flavour toe mak me loss
my owen ffortun ffor lacke of putting me in ffashion.'

The Haigs may have disdained dandyism, but they
were not behind the 'ffashioun' of the best Scottish
families in occasional disdain of the law of the land.
In 1535 Robert Haig was convicted of three separate
acts of ' stouthrief and spulzie,' committed against his
neighbours the Haliburtons of Mertoun ; having, in the
years 1519, 1521, and 1522, driven off horses, cattle, and
sheep from their lands. Abduction, again, as students
of family history must be aware, was a favourite
pastime of country gentlemen of old, and in 1675
Anthony, laird of Bemersyde, shared in an exciting
day's sport, assisting in carrying off Jean Home, heiress
of Aytoun, and forcibly marrying her to ' a poor young
boy, George Home, son to Kimmerghauie.' Oddly

202 A BOEDER TOWER

enough, this same laird Anthony some years before
had joined what Wodrow termed 'the abominable
sect of the Quakers,' and remained attached to that
body long enough to graft a new set of names on the
family tree. His first six children were named Jacob,
Zerubabel, Hannah, another Zerubabel, Lazarus, and
Emmanuel; but the names of the three youngest
betray symptoms of backsliding — Hibernia, William,
and Joan. Perhaps two years' imprisonment, which he
suffered on account of his connection with the Quakers,
sufficed to cool his zeal. Anthony's brother William, on
the other hand, got into trouble for his association with
Lord Balmerino, whose Supplication against Parlia-
mentary Bishops was the subject of an indictment,
drawn up by the Lord Advocate of the day. This last
is a fine sample of legal Billingsgate, the Supplication
being described as a 'scandalous, reproachful, odious,
infamous, and seditious libel, most despitefully belched
and vomited forth,' and all the King's good subjects
are exhorted ' to crush the cockatrice in the egg, and to
abhor it as a pestilential clout.'

Measured by the change in manners and customs, the
distance from the day when the first Haig established
his homestead on the bold bluff between Leaderfoot
and Dryburgh seems even greater than when it is
reckoned by centuries. It is a grim gratification, in
these days when agitators rage and parish councils
imagine a vain thing, to read the signature of Petrus
del Hage attached to the instrument whereby Richard
de Morville, Constable of Scotland, sold to Henry

OCTOBER 203

St. Clair, in 1166, the persons of Edmund the son of
Bonda, and Gillemichel his brother, and their sons
and daughters, and all their future progeny, for the
sum of three merks (40s).

The landscape has altered not less than the ways of
men. The uplands of Tweed and Yarrow, of which the
nakedness impressed Washington Irving so unfavour-
ably, were then almost unbroken woodland.

' The King was cumand thro' Caddonford,

And full five thousand men was he ;

They saw the derke foreste them before,

They thought it awsome fer to see.'

Nothing more 'awsome' is now to be seen than the
thriving plantations round the quiet seats of country
gentlemen, and all that remains of the ' derke foreste '
is here a birken shaw in a hill glen, and there a few
crouching oaks and scattered pines, as on the Gate-
heugh cliffs opposite Old Melrose. But the 'Covin
Tree,' a huge Spanish chestnut, still stands between
the tower and the ancient ' pleuse ' or pleasure-ground.
Standing on this bright morning beneath its canopy of
autumn gold, I look across the valley to conscious
Eildon, triply cleft, and then pass along the narrow
paved way down which so many generations of Haigs
have been carried to burial in St. Mary's aisle of
Dryburgh.

Still, as of yore, broad Tweed fills the sloping woods
with gentle sound; still the salmon return year after
year to linger among the loops and bends between the
Monk's Ford and Gladswood. But, with the people, the

204 THE HALY WIEL

tables are turned. Once it behoved every Scot to keep
a good grip of his gear, and to hold his neighbours and
tenants ready to spring to the saddle at short notice,
unless he would have his cattle driven off by ' our auld
enemies of England.' But the golden tide sets north-
wards now, and what used to be reckoned an earl's
ransom is paid willingly by many a Southerner for the
right of fishing a mile or so of this famous stream,
whereby muckle and welcome siller comes among the
worthy dwellers on its banks ; which condition of
things doth mightily content those who own chartered
fishings, and they are not to blame if the chief interest
the wayfarer feels in them and their country has its
source in a social state, to return to which would bring
much discomfort to all of us.

LXXVII

Chief among the salmon casts in the Bemersyde
water is the Haly Wiel, or holy pool, so called, probably,

The Haly because the monks of Dryburgh showed their
wiel discretion by annexing it. There is a tale of
dread connected with it, in which the present laird of
Bemersyde was one of the principal actors. I never
see that honourable gentleman without paying him
that tribute of silent respect which is due to one
who has passed through an irremediable sorrow.

Now, the Haly Wiel is a long pool, into which the
Tweed, escaping from the unwonted turmoil of Gate-
heugh, rushes swiftly at right and, turning sharply to
the left, sweeps placidly round a steep wooded cliff on

OCTOBER 205

the right bank. The channel is full of great stones,
among which the good fish harbour, and approach is
made to them by dropping a boat quietly down along
the wooded side of the cliff. Here, in the gloaming of
a November short day, the laird was angling some
years ago, and just as his fly was swinging over the
Cradle Rock, the welcome pull came, and he was fast
in a fish.

It was soon apparent that it was a fish of no common
size. It sailed about in a very independent way,
resisting all persuasion to approach the land. The
light was failing ; it would soon be dark ; and additional
pressure was put on the fish to bring matters to an
issue. This the salmon resented by dropping obstinately
down stream, until it was clear of the Haly Wiel
altogether, and in the broad, shallow water which
intervenes between it and the Monk's Ford. Then
matters became livelier. The fish began to run about,
got tired, and allowed itself to be towed within reach
of the net. For the first time the laird became aware
of the monster's dimensions: the net, huge as Tweed
landing-nets are, was too small to admit its head and
shoulders. Three times the attempt was made, and
failed as often. It was dark by this time, and difficult
to distinguish shallow water from deep. In short,
something went wrong — lamentably wrong; a little
jerk — a feeble wallop in the water — and the line
dangled limply from the rod, minus the fly.

'Well,' says the reader, 'where is the horrible part
of all this ? Every fisherman has lost the biggest fish

206 THE HALY WIEL

he ever hooked. The laird was no worse off than others,
He did not go and hang himself, I suppose.'

Not he ; nevertheless the worst remains to be told.
That very night there were poachers on the Monk's
Ford ; they secured the laird's lost fish, dead or dying
in the shallow water, with the fly in its mouth and half
a casting-line. It was too big to go into their sack, so
the fellows cut it in half, and made off. One half was
sent by train from St. Boswells Station, and the porter
who weighed it certifies that it only kicked the beam
at thirty-five pounds. Said I not well that such sorrow
as the laird carries about with him is irremediable ? The
mightiest salmon that ever straightened a line in the
water of Tweed !

LXXVIII

A PAIR of ospreys, interesting and noble birds now
too seldom seen, remained for several days lately (1895)
on the Tweed below Melrose. The osprey
must have been a familiar object on that
river once, but now, so nearly has the species been
exterminated in this country, none of the boatmen
knew what these birds were. It is a marvel how this
pair escaped destruction, for they were by no means
shy. I was not lucky enough to see them myself, but
a boatman described how he had watched one of them
sailing along the brow of the Gateheugh, whence poured
out a swarm of vulgar jackdaws, chattering and scolding
the gallant intruder. He paid little heed to them at
first, but presently, getting bored by the clamour, just
as a luckless daw passed beneath him, the osprey closed
his pinions, and, falling on the black rascal, dealt it
a blow which sent it whirling helpless into the gulf
below. This piece of discipline was enacted twice. I
give this under all reserve, as the osprey would not
strike anything but fish, except from pugnacity. I did
not see these birds to identify them as ospreys, but the
description given to me, of birds like large hawks, dark

208 THE OSPREY

brown above and light-coloured below, hardly admits
of any doubt as to what they were.

When Sir William Jardine wrote his notes to
Wilson's Birds of America, he said that a pair or two
of ospreys might be found about most of the Highland
lakes, and he mentions Loch Lomond, Loch Awe, and
the Lake of Menteith as regular stations. Later, in
1848, Charles St. John found several eyries in Suther-
landshire; indeed, some of the few unpleasant pages
in his delightful books are taken up with description
of how he and Dunbar shot several pairs of old birds
in the breeding season. At the present day, it is
believed, there are only two lochs in the Highlands
where ospreys are permitted to rear their young. Of
course it would not be safe to mention these, but I
have the satisfaction of recording that on one of them,
well known to me, where there has been an eyrie from
time immemoral, this year (1896), for the first time in
living memory, there were two eyries, and two broods
safely hatched.

Some years ago, about 1887, I was able to verify
Jardine's statement that if one of a pair of ospreys is
shot, the other will soon bring a new mate to the eyrie.
But the difficulty of replacing a lost mate in Scotland
has been vastly enhanced since Jardine's day. One of
the pair on the loch referred to was shot just before
the breeding season. The disconsolate mate remained
there a few days and then flew off. The following
spring the old home was untenanted, but in the third
year a pair were in full occupation once more. They

NOVEMBER 209

are now strictly protected, and as their eyrie is on an
island in the heart of a deer forest, they do not run
much risk of disturbance. One cannot repeat too often
the appeal on behalf of fine birds, for, however unre-
lenting man may be in his persecution of rare animals,
and jealous of his assumed monopoly over common
ones, here and there an ear will hear, and certainly
there are more people interested in the matter than
there were a few years ago.1

It is a stirring sight to see the dauntless way the
osprey seizes his prey, dropping like a levin-bolt from
mid-air into the water, grasping the fish lengthways,
parallel with the bird's own body, with strong hooked
claws. Human artifices of nets and hooks and endless
apparatus, seem contemptible compared with such
chivalrous warfare.

LXXIX

Space, light, and cool still air, with mingled odours
from the brine and the new ploughing. Low in the
southern sky wheels the November sun, TneRutn_
flashing miles of wet sand into dazzling wel1 Cross
radiance, and silvering the placid waters of Solway.

1 At the very moment that these notes are being knocked into shape
for the printer, news comes of an osprey being sent into Inverness
from Moy Hall, the seat of the Mackintosh (August 18, 1896). No
doubt that this was one of the young hatched in the present season in
the Highlands. From the same source comes the melancholy intelli-
gence of the following victims to wanton persecution in the same
season : a Greenland falcon, from Portree, Skye ; a snowy owl from
Forsinard ; a night-heron from Barra ; a roller from East Lothian ; and
a hoopoe from Stirlingshire.

O

210 THE RUTHWELL CKOSS

High on the west, beyond the Nith, rises the granite
bulk of Criffel; on the hither side of the river, some
five or six miles from where I stand, loom the dark
towers of Caerlaverock, ruined and roofless now, and
dozing in decrepitude among their ancient trees, but
once the centre of military stir — the chief defence of
the western Scottish Border. Its lords were chiefs of
the once powerful clan of Maxwells, and the hill on the
north side of the castle gave its name as their slogan —
'Wardlaw! bide Wardlaw!' Yonder to the south,
beyond the wide firth, the Cumberland hills — Skiddaw
and Saddleback — whitened with their first snow, show
pale, but clear; paler and less clear, because of the
smoke-drifts from Whitehaven and Workington, may
be traced farther to the west the clustering summits
of the Isle of Man. On the east, the eye rests on a
truncated green cone, conspicuous over the gentle
elevations of the plain, as Carlyle exultingly tells
Goethe in one of his letters. This is Birrenswark, a
much fortified and oft contested stronghold — Trimon-
tium of Roman generals, who thus rendered the Celtic
name treamh monaidh, the village on the hill. To the
north the view is contracted by the deep woodland
encircling the massive keep of Comlongan, still in the
possession of the Murrays.

But in this land— lying on the very highway of
English invasion — let the eye once begin to wander,
and memories rise thick and fast from every hill and
hamlet, every tower and river. For the present, I want
to talk only of the humble little kirk among the leafless

NOVEMBER 211

ash-trees close at hand. Kuthwell (you must pronounce
it Rivvel if you would have people understand you) is
associated for ever with the comical, as well as with the
romantic, side of archaeology. The name reminds us how
far incautious disciples of Monkbarns may go astray, but
also how surely scientific system will prevail in the end.
In spite of the deplorable zeal with which Scottish
reformers of the sixteenth century had carried out
the defacement or demolition of memorials of the old
religion, there remained until 1642, within the parish
kirk of Ruthwell, a lofty cross of stone, slender, richly
carved in every part, and bearing inscriptions in Runic
and Roman characters. In that year the General
Assembly suddenly awoke to the scandal of permitting
this monument of idolatry to exist, and decreed its
immediate destruction. But the Westlan' Whigs had
bowels, even in matters of religion ; the cross was cast
down indeed, and its shapely shaft and nimbed head
were broken into several pieces ; but it was suffered to
remain in the church, where Pennant viewed it one
hundred and thirty years later, in 1772. Subsequently,
even that remnant of reverence was withdrawn, and the
broken cross was thrown out into the kirkyard, where
wind, weather, and wanton mischief began to do their
work on it, until, by a happy disposition of lay patronage,
Dr. Duncan, the father of savings banks, was appointed
to the parish, and, having views beyond the Shorter
Catechism, rescued the fragments, pieced them to-
gether, and set them up in the manse garden. There
the venerable cross stood till, five or six years ago, some

212 THE RUTHWELL CROSS

"•HI

local antiquaries (may their names for ever live in story !)
concerned themselves to get the relic put under shelter,
and collected funds for the purpose. The result has
been that it now stands safely within the ugly little
parish church. Now, a sculptured cross, seventeen feet
high, set in a Presbyterian place of worship to be
honoured of all men, supplies a commentary on Scottish
ecclesiastical history almost as pungent as did the
recent restoration of one of the side chapels in St.
Giles' of Edinburgh in memory of Montrose.

There remains to be told how, before all this happened,
the wise men interpreted the Runic inscription. Good
Dr. Duncan made careful drawings of the cross, which
remain unto this day a monument of his fidelity, with
only one slight but pregnant exception. The worthy
man, knowing nothing about Runes, copied that part
of the inscription which is in those characters, with
rigid accuracy ; but when it came to transcribing Latin
— marry ! he was at home there, and in order to carry
out his interpretation thereof, in reconstructing the
cross he fitted into the Runic characters a few words
of his own in Roman, with doleful results, as will
presently be shown.

Next came Mr. Thornleif Repp, an Icelandic scholar
of renown, to whom Runes were, literally, ABC.
Assuming, as was most reasonable, that the language
was Old Norse, he interpreted the inscription faultlessly,
unfolding a really thrilling narrative. It was a plain
statement how 'a vessel of Christ, of eleven pounds
weight, with ornaments, made by the Therfusian fathers,

NOVEMBER 213

was given in expiation for the devastation of Ashla-
fardhal, i.e. the vale of Ashlafr. As if to put the
translation beyond all doubt, ' there is preserved/ says
the New Statistical Account of Dumfriesshire, ' along
with the column, an ornamental circular stone,' no
doubt the ' vessel of Christ,' or baptismal font alluded
to. Great was the throwing up of hats in antiquarian
circles at this easy reading of the riddle by the erudite
Repp. Nobody, it is true, had ever heard of the
Therfusian fathers ; but there were plenty of places in
broad Scotland which could easily be identified with
Ashlafardhal, the only difficulty was to decide upon
which. But the jealousy of girls is as milk and honey
compared to the rivalry of philologers, and here is
Professor Finn Magnusen comes me cranking in, pro-
nouncing Repp a reprobate, and giving a totally different
rendering to the Runes. He agrees, truly, that the
language is Old Norse ; no one with any reputation to
lose could question that; but he shows that what is
commemorated is not 'a devastation' at all, but a
marriage ! Moreover, deceived by the Roman characters
inserted among the Runes by Dr. Duncan, he pro-
nounced the ' Therfusian fathers ' to exist only in the
diseased imagination of the despicable Repp, and that
these words really meant — ' Ofa, the descendant of
Toda, caused it (the stone) to be cut.'

There was a bit of a stir, not altogether harmonious,
among those who had been so effusively grateful to
Repp ; but, in time, unanimity was restored by adopting
the reading of Magnusen.

214 THE EUTHWELL CROSS

But there are always some people with no reputation
to lose, who never learn the wisdom of leaving things
alone. Of these, was one Mr. John Kemble, a young
student of Anglo-Saxon, to whom it occurred in 1838
profanely to wonder why, seeing that the character of
the cross was Saxon, the language of the inscription
should be Norse. He set to work independently, and,
assuming that the words were in Anglo-Saxon and
none other, made out the legend to be a metrical
soliloquy, supposed to be spoken by the Cross itself.

Over-curious Kemble ! Forthwith there began a
storm which raged for years between all the universities
of Western Europe, and might be raging still, but for
a little incident which occurred about five-and-thirty
years ago. Somebody foraging among some Anglo-
Saxon homilies preserved at Vercelli, near Milan, lighted
upon a hymn entitled ' The Dream of the Holy Rood,'
since then known as Coedrnon's hymn. In this the
Cross — the original Cross of Calvary — is supposed to
address the sleeper. There are fifty-nine lines in all of
this hymn, of which these following seventeen were
found to correspond word for word with Kemble's
rendering of the Ruth well inscription :

' Then the young hero prepared himself,
Who was Almighty God ;
Strong and firm of mood
He mounted the lofty cross
Courageously in the sight of many.

I raised the puissant King,
The Lord of the Heavens ;
I dared not fall down.

NOVEMBEK 215

They reviled us both together,
I was all stained with blood,
Poured from the man's side.

Christ was on the cross,

Yet, hither hastening,

Men came from afar

Unto the noble one.

I beheld all that,

With sorrow I was overwhelmed.

I was all wounded with shafts ;
They laid Him down limb-weary ;
They stood at the head of the corpse ;
They beheld the Lord of Heaven.'

Thus, all controversy being laid to rest, the traveller
may do worse than exchange the Pulman car for a local
crawler at Carlisle, and, alighting at Kuthwell, inspect
this beautiful relic of the Anglo-Saxon Church of
Northumbria in the eighth century, and quaff a cup
from the chalybeate spring, now called the Brow Well,
but formerly the Rood Well, whence the parish derives
its name.

LXXX

Driving to catch an early train one morning lately
(1894), and taking a slight detour for the pleasure of
passing along the shore of the lake sanctuary,
I was rewarded by witnessing a beautiful Display of
scene of bird life. Old beeches, towers of Col°
russet gold among the surrounding snow, had showered
down their harvest of sweet mast, thereby attracting
a flock of wood-pigeons, a cock pheasant or two, and

216 DOUNE CASTLE

numbers of wild ducks. All were busily at work beneath
the spreading boughs ; on the approach of my dogcart,
pigeons and ducks took wing together and flew across
the track — a splendid show of fine feathers in the low,
bright sunlight.

LXXXI

It is not long since we of ' the leisured classes,' were
sneering at bicyclists as ' cads upon castors ' ; at the

present time some people reckon proficiency
Donne Castle l • i i • - i

on wheels as essential to being in the mode.

That is rather a drawback, in the view of quiet folk ;
but there is plenty of compensation ; not the least part
of which being the re-opening of deserted highways,
and the re-visiting of scenes which must have been
well known to travellers in the coaching days.

Such is the stretch of excellent Macadam lying
between Stirling and Callander, traversing a district
more thickly peopled with the past than many others ;
for though the traveller turn his back on Bannockburn,
every step of the ground he crosses has been fought
over times beyond reckoning by Pict and Briton, Roman
and Gael, Highland cateran and Lowland Scot, Stuart
and Guelph. But now these woods and crags, which
have resounded so often to the battle-cry of the hill-
men or bellowed with thunder of culverins, carthouns,
basilisks, serpents, and other mediaeval artillery, are
shaken by no sound more vengeful than the scream of
engines on the Caledonian railway.

Traversing the scene of Wallace's triumph over

NOVEMBER 217

Cressingham and Surrey, and leaving the famous
Abbey Craig on the right, the road crosses the level
carse as far as the Bridge of Allan — the Thermae of
Stirling and Glasgow — where it climbs the ridge divid-
ing Strathallan from the Carse of Menteith. As soon
as you are clear of the woods of Keir, a splendid
prospect opens before you, and you should rest a while
among a circle of huge stones, which mark the grave
of some doughty doer of yore, on the right side of the
way. There are certain standard landscapes which views
of lesser note often bring to mind. This one recalls
the scene from a little hill just outside Turin, much
frequented by tourists. Instead of Mont Rosa, there is
the shapely dome of Benledi ; Stuc-ma-chrome takes
the place of II Gran Paradiso, which, as the Torinian
vendor of bad field-glasses never wearies of testifying,
vous empfche de voir le grand Mont Blanc ; and far to
the west, in place of the many crested Ligurian range,
you have the Argyllshire hills clustering behind the
cloven crest of Ben Lomond. But, instead of the level
Lombard champaign, rich in vines, wheat and maize,
the middle distance and foreground are made up of
shining oat-stubbles and vivid turnips, among belts and
clumps of wood, piebald with russet beech and rifle-
green firs. In truth, on this brilliant autumn morning,
with the Highland hills snow-clad half-way down their
sides, and the sky barred with no more than a few
fleecy cloudlets, no Scotsman need shrink from a com-
parison between the two lands.
Two great buildings catch the eye — one, a couple of

218 DOUNE CASTLE

miles to the east, at the foot of the Ochil range, is the
Hydropathic Establishment of Dunblane, arrogantly
new and square, dwarfing the old cathedral, which
has of late been reverently, discreetly, and altogether
rightly restored ; the other, as far to the west, is Doune
Castle, grey and tiineworn, but gleaming to-day like a
tarnished silvern clasp in the great girdle of woodland
that lies about the feet of the Highland hills.

Murdoch, second Duke of Albany, who was to lose
his head so soon as his master, James I., returned from
captivity in England, signalised his Regency, from 1419
to 1424, by the erection of at least two notable strong-
holds, of which one is famed Tantallon and the other
Doune. It was just the time when Scottish domestic
or defensive architecture (for the terms are nearly
synonymous in speaking of that age) moved forward
from the plan of a simple keep, entered on the second
floor by a movable ladder, to the grander design of a
continuous building surrounding a central court. The
keep still remained an important feature, but the rooms
in it increased in size; the inmates were no longer
huddled into comfortless apartments where cooking,
eating, and sleeping went on simultaneously. Banquet-
ing halls, chapels, visitors' suites and offices were added,
evidence of a growing desire for refinement, and of a
revival from the extreme poverty of the fourteenth
century, when the national exchequer and private re-
sources had been drained to the lowest ebb, in the long
struggle for Independence. Still, one is struck, even
in a pile of the importance of Doune, by the vast

NOVEMBER 219

inferiority of the workmanship, whether constructive or
decorative, applied to Scottish domestic architecture of
this date, to the magnificence of the design and ex-
cellence of handiwork shown in contemporary ecclesias-
tical buildings.

Doune Castle was never finished; probably the works
were interrupted by the execution of the unlucky
Murdoch; still, the green promontory between the
confluent streams of Teith and Ardoch bears a noble
mass of masonry, enough to show the scale of the
original design. Some of the rooms are of noble pro-
portions. The common hall in the keep measures
fourty-four feet by twenty-six ; but the banqueting hall
in the west wing, entered from the courtyard by an
outside staircase, is sixty-eight feet long by twenty-
seven wide, and once had an ornamental open roof.
It was constructed with an eye to business as well as to
beauty, for there is a serving-room handy, communi-
cating with the great vaulted kitchen through two
arched openings. The arched entrance to the castle
passes under the common hall in the keep, and the
iron-grated doors still hang at the end of the portcullis.

When Albany laid down his life on the heading hill
of Stirling, his splendid, half-built castle passed to the
Crown, to which it was an important fortress, com-
manding as it did two of the principal passes into the
Highlands. The beautiful Janet Kennedy, daughter
of the second Lord Kennedy of Cassilis, was betrothed
to Archibald ' Bell-the-Cat/ Earl of Angus, with whom
to trifle required a cool head and a stout heart. She

220 DOTJNE CASTLE

can have been deficient in neither, for she encouraged
the addresses of that flower of chivalry, James iv., and,
in fact, became his mistress. James, it will be remem-
bered, was an exceedingly devout young man, and
outlay on behalf of 'the lady,' as the fair Janet is
discreetly termed in his household accounts, appears
sandwiched with expenses on his frequent pilgrimages
to St. Ninian's shrine at Whithorn and other religious
exercises, as well as those incurred at golf and 'the
tables.'

Bell-the-Cat had made over to his betrothed the
lands of Braidwood and Crawf ord- Lindsay ; these the
pious king quietly annexed, on the plea that Angus had
conveyed them to Janet without the necessary royal
licence ; and when the lover claimed his bride without
the lands, he was promptly imprisoned in Dunbarton
Castle. His faithless love bore a son to her paramour*
being then at Doune Castle, as shown by the following
entry in the accounts : —

'Item. — ye xx day of December (1501) for viii elne small
quhit (white) to be blancatis and wylycottis (blankets and
petticoats) to ye barne (child) in Doun, ilk elne iis. viiid.,
summa xxiis viiid.'

This ' barne ' lived to become James, Earl of Moray,
and his mother was splendidly endowed with the lands
and castle of Darnaway. But the king gave Doune
to his consort, Margaret Tudor, who in turn passed it
on to her third husband, Henry Stuart, from whom it
has descended to the Earl of Moray, its present

NOVEMBER 221

The castle was greatly dilapidated in 1745, when
Prince Charlie's white ensign floated over the keep;
it will be remembered that Waverley was taken there
after parting with the gifted Gilfillan. It was here also
that John Home, the poet, was confined with other
prisoners taken by the Jacobites at the battle of
Falkirk. Six of them, including Home, made good
their escape by twisting their blankets into ropes.
Four of them had descended in safety, when the rope
snapped with the fifth. The sixth, Thomas Barrow,
slipped to the broken end and let himself drop. He
broke some ribs and sprained an ankle, nevertheless his
comrades managed to carry him off in safety.

Doune is a place of sorrowful memories and blighted
hopes, yet it has none of the sombre, inhospitable
aspect of so many ruins in the north. Rather does it
give the impression .of a baronial palace, lying fair to
the sun, wherein long trains of guests might be
received and treated with rural abundance — the fine
red wine of Beaugency, and good brown ale ; while the
courtyard rang with much strumming of jongleurs and
jingling of spurs. Fair and far is the prospect from its
ramparts over the deep oak woods of Blair Drummond,
and beside it flows the Teith, one of the earliest salmon
rivers in Scotland. The fish rightly prefer this lucid
torrent, fed from the great lakes of Lubnaig and
Vennachar, to the sluggish, peaty Forth, which joins it
just above Stirling. The Teith, indeed, might be the
Abana or Pharpar of anglers, but for two wicked im-
pediments in the shape of cruive-dykes, one just below

222 LAPWINGS

Doune Castle, the other lower down, at Craigforth.
When will Scottish lairds learn the lesson of the goose
and the golden eggs? Cruive-caught salmon cannot
bring the landlord as much as sixpence a pound ; but
there are plenty of people ready to pay many guineas
for every salmon they may take with the fly.

LXXXII

Some County Councils, anxious to exercise their
powers under the new Wild Birds Preservation Act,
are concerning themselves about the diminu-
tion in some districts of the lapwing, peewit,
or green plover, and have petitioned the Home Secre-
tary to sanction the prohibition of the taking of
plovers' eggs. As the author of the Act in question,
I am naturally anxious that it should not be a dead
letter; but, though nobody can be more alive to the
merits of lapwings than myself, I should be sorry to see
a stop put to the harmless rural industry of collecting
the eggs, especially as that is not the way the mischief
comes. Earlier in these notes it has been pointed out
that all the lapwings reared in this country pass the
winter farther south ; while those that winter in Britain
are bred far to the north. The northern limit of lap-
wings in Britain passes just north of the Moray Firth ;
there are none in Caithness in December. It follows
from this that no amount of egg-taking would affect
the winter stock of lapwings in Britain. Moreover,
the eggs taken are chiefly those of the first nest,

NOVEMBER 223

generally laid on fallow or ploughed land, which the
ordinary operations of sowing, harrowing, and rolling
would destroy. The later eggs, laid among springing
corn and grass, are pretty safe from wholesale molesta-
tion. But where County Councils might usefully
interfere is to prevent the destruction of the birds
themselves. Each year an increasing number of lap-
wings are exposed for sale in second and third-rate
London poulterers' shops, no doubt to be palmed off on
the customers of certain restaurants as golden plover.
Though not absolutely unpalatable, they are very
inferior to that succulent little bird. It is unpardon-
able greed to devour both parents and eggs ; we don't
treat any other wild birds so voraciously ; why should
the lapwing be singled out for peculiar persecution?
It is shameful that, as may be witnessed any spring in
London, adult lapwings and their eggs should be
exposed for sale in the same shops at the same time ;
for of all fowls of the air, there is not one that works
so incessantly and exclusively in the farmer's service as
the pretty peewit. The diet of this bird is wholly of
worms, insects, and molluscs, and it is simply inde-
fatigable in clearing the land of these pests. The
Covenanters hated the peewit because its nervous rest-
lessness betrayed them when hiding in the moors
from Claverhouse's dragoons, and Sir Walter Scott
mentions that even in his day the shepherds used to
destroy their eggs.

224 USEFUL BIRDS

LXXXIII

As yet, Great Britain compares favourably with every
other Christian country in Europe in the abundance of
Useful k^d life- I say Christian, because, as is well
Birds known, Mohammedans refrain scrupulously
from molesting even such birds as we reckon vermin in
this country ; the interest of travelling through Turkey
is much enhanced by the number and variety of
feathered creatures in the woods, the fields, and even
in the towns. In other countries, the growing scarcity
of useful birds has attracted the attention of their
respective legislatures. With Mr. Howard Saunders, I
was appointed by the Board of Agriculture to attend
the international conference invited by the French
Government to assemble in Paris in June 1895. Every
European Government, except that of Turkey, was
represented, and we found the greatest difficulty in
persuading such of the delegates as had never visited
England to believe in the abundance of bird life in our
country.

Our existing legislation provides for most of the
resolutions carried at the conference ; but there is one
point in which foreign nations invite our co-operation,
which ought not to be difficult to carry out, namely, that
we should prohibit the importation of birds scheduled
as utiles a I' agriculture, and protected abroad. Why
should the cultivated lands of Holland and Belgium be
stripped of their feathered police, the lapwings, in order
that Cockneys may eat them as golden plover ?

December

LXXXIV

A GOOD deal has appeared in the public journals lately
(1895) about the approaching extinction of noble or
interesting animals before the advance of
civilisation. Correspondents of the Times a Fur
have concerned themselves about the rapid
diminution of the African elephant, but the most
suggestive paper I have seen on this subject is one in
the Spectator for November 23rd, entitled ' The Rarer
Furs,' which contains a remarkable and attractive
proposal. The increasing scarcity and costliness of
sables, ermines, martens, chinchillas, and other small
animals with superior fur, suggests the inquiry why
these should not be bred on farms in Siberia and else-
where. The sable is not less prolific than the common
ferret ; its fur is literally matchless, and the enormous
price it fetches makes the idea of a sable farm not less
a practical one than what has been carried out already
with complete success — namely, the profitable breeding
of ostriches for their plumes. Sables are now (1895)
30 per cent, above the exorbitant price of last year, a
single skin of the best Russian quality commanding as
much as £45. As for silver foxes, the value of a litter

226 WHY NOT A FUR FARM?

of these to the happy owner may be estimated in light
of the fact that last spring a single skin sold for £170.
Furs, as the writer in the Spectator justly observes, add
an exhilaration to the sense of warmth which no other
material can impart ; so if we allow the animals which
produce them to be killed out, we shall not only be
making wild nature poorer in variety, but be squander-
ing a luxury which can never be restored.

Our native fauna, in spite of the influence of the
Gulf Stream on our climate, is naturally rich in the
production of fur. The marten still lingers in Wales ;
the death of one in that country was recorded in the
Field of the same date as the Spectator article. Two
were killed in Argyllshire in 1896, and, if I mistake
not, it is not quite extinct in the English lake district.
No animal is more easily reared in captivity ; indeed, it
is known that the marten used to be kept in English
houses as a mouser before cats became common in this
country. The common stoat — the true ermine — is still
tolerably plentiful with us ; but south of the Tweed it
seldom, or at least irregularly, assumes its beautiful
snowy winter jacket. Ermine fur was so highly
esteemed in the heyday of chivalry that its use was
restricted by a statute of the Plantagenets to members
of the royal family.

It would be an exceedingly interesting experiment
for the owner of a deer-forest to enclose a piece of hill-
side for rearing sables, martens, ermines, and even silver
foxes. Stalkers and gillies have plenty of spare time,
except during two months in the year ; the animals, if

DECEMBER 227

securely fenced (which would be the chief difficulty and
expense), would require to be regularly fed with rabbits
and blue hares, but would need little other attention,
till they had multiplied sufficiently to be killed and
skinned ; and the enterprise might turn out in the end
to be an exceedingly lucrative one.

LXXXV

The misdeeds of the stoat have damaged the char-
acter of its relative, the weasel, and it would be vain to
try and persuade the average gamekeeper stoats and
that this active little animal is, in truth, far weasels
more beneficial than hurtful. Warm were the praises,
in a small northern town well known to me, bestowed
upon a cat for destroying a weasel which entered a
house one night last month (1895). It does not appear
that it occurred to anybody to speculate what business
the weasel was after in the dwelling-house. Bad as is
its reputation, it can hardly have been suspected of
designs upon the inmates, or the tea-spoons, or the
contents of the till. No ; the weasel came for precisely
the same reason that set Greymalkin on the prowl. It
was after mice; for mice, rats, and young rabbits are
the staple diet of this fine little beast of prey. Un-
luckily, nine people out of ten confound weasels with
stoats. A hen-pheasant killed on her nest, or a pullet
sucked to death is set down as readily to the account
of one of the Mustelidse as to that of another. Besides
the greater size of the stoat, it is easily distinguished
from the weasel by the black brush at the end of the

228 A MEMORABLE GALE

tail, which is wholly wanting in the smaller animal.
The shepherds of Ettrick and Eskdale bore willing
testimony before the Vole Plague Committee to the
good service done by the weasels — ' whittrets,' as they
call them, i.e. white-throats — among the swarming
voles.

It is a pretty sight to watch a brood of young stoats
at play on a summer evening. The grace and swiftness
of their movements remind one of fish rather than
four-footed creatures ; then, when they take alarm, off
go the parents, with seven or eight young ones so close
in their wake, jumping sideways over each others'
backs, that the whole procession looks like a single
animal threading its way through the herbage.

LXXXVI

The storm which blew in the early morning of
December 23, 1894, was probably the most severe while
A Memorable ^ lasted of any that have visited the west
Gale coast in living memory. Nobody who
viewed our district can forget the desolation revealed
by daylight. We did not lose so many trees, indeed, as
in the great storm of December 1882, because we had
not so many to lose. In that year the loss on Monreith
estate came to about 25,000 trees (the Duke of
Buccleuch reckoned his loss at 1,200,000); we after-
wards counted about 7000 trees blown out by this latter
storm. But the general damage done was far more
appalling; my bill for re-roofing farmhouses stripped
of their slates came to more than £800. The lakes

DECEMBER 229

were full of rooks, blown from their roosts and drowned ;
the gardeners at Castle Kennedy collected more than
500 corpses out of the lake there, and for days after-
wards the woods were full of dead and cripples, the
latter having been dashed against the swaying branches
and their wings broken.

But the most remarkable evidence of the force of the
wind when the gale was at its height was shown on the
beach the following day. A schooner was blown ashore
just opposite our house, and some of us went down to
see the wreck. The tide-line on the lee shore of Luce
Bay was piled with masses of sea-ware, mingled with
the dead cod and flat-fish, countless starfish, thousands
of crabs, with chaffinches and other small land birds
blown from the other side of the bay, twelve miles
distant. All these may be seen after an unusually
heavy gale, but, long as I have lived by the sea, I never
before saw the bodies of lobsters among the slain. Of
these, on this occasion, we picked up as many as we could
carry, lying quite dead in the extent of not more than
two hundred yards of beach. We took them home and
proved their excellence on the table ; disproving at the
same time the cruel tradition that lobsters, in order to
take a fine scarlet when cooked, must be boiled alive.
These lobsters were gathered after death, though still
black, but when boiled they were as bright red as any
that ever graced a ball supper. The only thing that
preserved us from utter destruction in this gale, was,
that it blew at its height for less than three-quarters of
an hour. The destructive character of its predecessor

230 BLACK-GAME

in December 1882 was caused by the centre of the
cyclone being arrested for a while over the Isle of Mull,
just in the position which brought the north-west blow,
always the heaviest, prevailing in its posterior segment,
to bear on the south-west coast of Scotland.

LXXXVII

Some complaints have been heard lately about the
serious decrease in the numbers of black-game in Scot-
land, and no doubt there is good reason for
Black-Game

the same; for black -game, being poly-
gamous, like their near relative the pheasant, will not
endure the same severe treatment which pairing game-
birds survive. The mother-bird's moral sense seems to
have deteriorated owing to the laxity of her connubial
relations, for both hen-pheasants and grey-hens are
notoriously bad nurses. Flush the grey-hen in July,
and she will rise on her strong pinions and steam away
over hill and glen, apparently without a thought of the
helpless brood crouching in the heather. Did anybody
ever see either hen-pheasant or grey-hen resort to that
fond and common device of monogamous mother-birds
— shamming cripples to divert attention from their
young? I never did, and I question whether poly-
gamous birds ever do so.

But in one respect the grey-hen differs very remark-
ably from the hen-pheasant. The cock-pheasant struts
about in the nesting season followed by his dingy docile
wives, and suffers no rival to approach his harem
without doing battle. But blackcock are philosophic

DECEMBER 231

husbands; in the love-season they spend most of the
day together, devoting an hour morning and evening
to receive visits from the hens, which often have to fly
miles from their intended nesting-place to the flirting
ground. During the hours not occupied in love-making,
the cocks spend their time at the club, as it were — some
sunny knoll, birchen grove, or meadow by the river,
where a wary observer may watch them, drumming and
strutting like turkey-cocks, dancing, and performing
the most grotesque antics for each other's delectation,
but never, as I think, fighting.

Although black-game are diminishing in many places,
there are plenty still on large estates, where the ground
is suitable for them, such as Drumlanrig, in Nithsdale,
and Cumloden, in the valley of Cree ; and the seasons
of 1895 and 1896 were both very favourable for them.
They love the debateable ground between moorland and
arable, and only want fair treatment to take care of
themselves in such places. It is not likely that any-
body will ever see again what I once saw within five-
and- thirty miles of Charing Cross, namely, five
grey-hens sitting together on a birch-tree in the Hurt
Wood, between Guildford and Dorking.

In the north, the letting of shootings has done more
than anything else to make black-game scarce. Many
unwilling landowners have been forced to do so by the
depression in agriculture, and, though there are many
shooting tenants who treat the ground in a sportsman-
like way, there are others of course who, whether from
ignorance or anxiety to get as much as they can for

232 CAPERCAILZIE AND PTARMIGAN

their money, are unduly severe on black-game. The
worst offenders in this respect are those who rent a
shooting for a single season. Grey-hens are shot, often
before the legitimate day, and immature poults pay the
penalty of weak, heavy fliers. Indeed, had pheasants
been treated in the same way without the aid of hand-
rearing, they would have become extinct in this country
long ago. The season for shooting black-game should
be the same as that for pheasants ; instead of beginning
on August 20th, it should be deferred till October 1st,
and instead of ending [on December 10th, it should go
on through January, when the cocks are in their finest
plumage. Moreover, attempts should be made to
replenish the stock of black-game by hand-rearing,
which is much easier carried out with polygamous birds
than with those which pair.

LXXXVIII

While we are grieved to note the diminution in
the numbers of black -game in some parts of this

Ca ercailzie ^s^an(^ (tnev are not f°un<l at all m Ireland),
and it is a pleasure to think that the other
anmgan. gyj^jgjj members of the grouse tribe never
were more abundant. Capercailzie are spreading
steadily wherever suitable tracts of wood exist, and
although they are of indifferent repute for the larder,
the restoration of these splendid birds to our native
fauna, after a period of complete extinction, is matter of
satisfaction to every lover of wild things. Attempts to
restore ptarmigan to the hills of Galloway, whence they

DECEMBER 233

have disappeared within living memory, have not been
successful so far, but there need be little doubt that
perseverance would prevail with them, as it did in the
case of capercailzie. A shepherd, who died two or
three years ago, told me that he had last seen ptarmigan
on the Merrick, a hill in Galloway of 2700 feet, in 1826.
That year is still referred to in this district as ' the year
of the short corn,' and my informant attributed the
extinction of ptarmigan to the great drought that pre-
vailed that summer. That may have proved the last
straw, but no doubt the birds succumbed here, as on the
Cumberland hills, to the improved style of fowling-
piece. In the Highlands, ptarmigan are as numerous
as ever, if not more so, because, as their chosen haunts
are generally in a deer-forest, they are seldom molested
by sportsmen. That the southern uplands are quite
suitable for maintaining this lovely game-bird, let a
manuscript of the seventeenth century, preserved in
the Edinburgh Advocates' Library, testify : —

' In the remote parts of this great mountain (the Merrick)
are very large red deer ; and about the top thereof that fine
bird called the Mountain Partridge, or, by the commonalty,
the Tarmachan, about the size of a Eed-cock, and the flesh
much of the same nature ; feeds, as that bird doth, on the
seeds of the bull-rush, and makes its protection in the chinks
and hollow places of thick stones, from the insults of the
eagles, which are in plenty, both the large gray and the
black, about that mountain.'

The lonely top of Merrick presents the same aspect
to-day as when these lines were penned, but red deer,

234 A NOR'-WESTER

eagles, and ptarmigan have been driven from their
immemorial home. The eagles lingered longest; the
' black/ that is, the golden eagle, was known to breed
on this range as late as 1839 ; and ' the large gray/ or
white-tailed eagle, had its last eyrie here about 1862.
No bird of ravin larger than the buzzard, or nobler
than the peregrine, frequents these heights at this day,
but the memorial of the eagles is indelibly written on
one peak, called Benyellary — that is, in the departed
Gaelic tongue — beinn iolaire, the eagle's hill.

LXXXIX

During four whole days (December 1895) the wind
has roared from the north and north-west, most of the
A Nor'- time with the force of a heavy gale. This
wester js unusuai constancy for rough weather on
the west coast, where the normal wind-shift in areas of
depression is generally easy to mark. . The disturbance
ended in a snowstorm, and this morning is beautifully
bright, with a dead calm. Such a commotion as we
have had in the atmosphere always has a marked
effect on the local distribution of birds, and there is
evidence of this to-day in the population of our lake.
Before the gale, there were plenty of mallard, teal,
tufted duck, pochards, and widgeon, with a solitary
pair of shovellers, which arrived early in the autumn.
This morning six more shovellers have arrived, and a
dozen goldeneyes, including two male birds in splendid
plumage. Of the widgeon only two pairs remain;
the rest are probably sunning themselves in the bay.

DECEMBER 235

XO

A new joy has been added to field studies, so per-
fect as to exceed the most extravagant expectations.
Everybody must have found the ordinary Assisted
binocular unsatisfactory; both eye-pieces Vision
have to be adjusted to the same focus, and few people
have eyes of even approximately equal power. Most
sportsmen, therefore, adhere to the single spy-glass,
which is excellent, no doubt, but fatiguing to the eye.
Herr Zeiss, of Jena, has come to the rescue by inventing
a binocular, of which each tube is adjusted separately
to focus. More — much more than that — the instru-
ment is constructed on the reflecting principle of an
astronomical glass, which gives great magnifying power
within a very little compass, and, at the same time,
extraordinary clearness of vision over an extended
field. For deer-stalkers this invention is simply
priceless, providing them with what is practically a
pair of long-distance spectacles of high power, so light,
that they may be fixed by a fastening round the head,
leaving the hands free. Needless to say what a boon
they will prove to the field naturalist.

As a source of amusement, and more than amuse-
ment, it is strange how seldom one sees the spy-glass
made use of by people out for pleasure in the country.
The flight of birds, the course of streams, mountains,
rocks, ruined towers, passing ships — all contribute,
often insensibly, to their enjoyment; yet it hardly ever
occurs to anybody how indefinitely this enjoyment may
be increased by very simple means. Even a small case

236 ASSISTED VISION

of lenses of three powers, such as may be bought from
any optician for half-a-crown or three-and-sixpence,
provides an avenue for a vast deal of harmless pleasure.
I remember well, when grouse-driving one morning,
how I delighted a young keeper who was loading for
me, by the revelations of one such lens. He had
never looked through one before, and he could hardly
believe his eyes when it was directed on the caterpillar
of an emperor moth, which happened to be crawling on
the edge of our box. It is a handsome worm, even as
seen by the naked eye, but when magnified, its vivid
green skin and salmon-coloured warts present a splendid
appearance.

It is good to show a young gardener through a lens
some of the everyday phenomena that are around him
at his work, such as the irritable movements of the
stamens of any of the barberries (Darwinii is as good
as any of them) : how quickly they close up round the
pistil on the insertion of any external object, be it
point of pin or tongue of bee. Flowers present beauty
in plenty to unassisted eyes, but there is a vast deal
can only be enjoyed by help of a glass. Too many
of us reject all auxiliaries to vision, till the mournful
day comes — bonjour, lunettes ! adieu, fillettes ! — when
we can no longer puzzle out the bill of fare without
spectacles.

This quiet bay on the west coast, lit by the low
winter sun, is a fair prospect without any need for
artificial scrutiny, but a great deal is waiting to be
revealed by the glass. On the right, the land rises into

DECEMBER 237

a bold, rocky promontory, whence the cliff falls almost
vertically to the sea ; in front, there is a curving sweep
of sand, whereon often thunders the surf, but to-day
only wavelets break with a gentle, measured throb.
On the left, the land rises again, to descend to the
shore in grassy slopes, and a long spit, boulder-strewn
and fringed with golden tangle, runs out into the tide.

There are a couple of kestrels aloft, not hovering as
they do when hunting for a meal, but playing with
each other; now rising to a great height, and now
plunging headlong with amazing speed, and recovering
themselves within a few inches of the rocks below,
wheel round the cliff in hot pursuit of each other — a
magnificent display of wing power. Presently they
alight together on the crag ; direct the glass upon them,
and you will be charmed with their beauty. They are
not hawks these, but true falcons ; the lens brings them
so close that you can mark one of the badges of their
clan — the dark iris, distinguishing the falcons from the
yellow-eyed, short-winged hawks. Despite his warlike
mien and active habits, the kestrel is almost guiltless
of destroying game. His staple diet consists of mice,
beetles, and large moths ; and if at times he is tempted
to lift a young pheasant from the coops, it is an excep-
tional lapse from virtue which may well be overlooked,
in consideration of the good service this bird renders
to farmers and gardeners.1

1 Partial as I am to kestrels, and convinced of their blameless
habits in general, I must admit that certain individuals acquire a
depraved taste for young hand-reared pheasants, and that when they
take to frequenting the coops there is nothing for it but to shoot them.

238 ASSISTED VISION

Turning your glass now upon the shore, a great
variety of life is revealed. Oyster-catchers are busily
running to and fro in showy liveries of black and white,
with legs and bills like red sealing-wax — ' beaked and
rnembered gules,' as the heralds would blazon it. The
coloration of birds is a perpetual puzzle. Why should
oyster-catchers have such conspicuous plumage, while
the redshanks feeding beside and among them, resemble
them only in the hue of their bills and feet, the pre-
vailing tinge in their plumage being ash-brown? If
protective colour have all the advantage claimed for it,
how comes it that the gay oyster-catcher seems to
fare as well in the battle of life as his dusky com-
panions ?

Of sadder tinge even than the redshanks, dunlins,
and sandpipers are the melancholy curlews, of which
there are half a dozen down there, thrusting their long
curved beaks into the ooze, and dragging out the
hideous, but doubtless succulent, lug-worms. They are
the most shy of all the plovers, but here, ensconced
behind a grey stone wall, you may follow all their
movements as minutely as if they were running about
on your own drawing-room carpet. They are quaint
old-world objects, such as one may imagine moving
over the primeval ooze, among giant lizards of pleiocene
design lying at unconscionable length in the sun.
While you are watching the curlews — swish — a little
bevy of swift birds sweep over the field with a single
piping note, shrill and short. It is a vedette from a
great army of golden plover in the ploughed lands

DECEMBER 239

above the cliffs, come down to whet their palates with
a little sea fare.

There is a gaily-coloured group in the little sandy
haven close to the boulder point; nine sheldrakes,
brilliant with glossy green heads, snowy breasts and
backs, chestnut flanks, and vermilion bills and legs.
Their daily diet of shell-fish and crustaceans render the
flesh of these splendid birds so rank that nobody cares
to shoot them, and they are fairly plentiful along this
coast. They are remarkable as the only British members
of the duck tribe of which the female is as brightly
feathered as the male. She runs no risk therefrom in
the nesting season, for she lays her eggs deep in some
rabbit-hole in the clean white sand of the links, where
her gay mantle cannot betray her to passers-by. But
this question is not easy to answer — did Nature indulge
the female sheldrake with fine feathers in consideration
of her subterranean habit of incubation ? or has instinct
prompted the said habit because of the coat of many
colours ?

Beyond the sheldrakes, where a little stream trickles
out to sea through a bed of green weed, three couple
of widgeon, liveliest and gracefullest of all British
ducks, are sunning themselves. One of them, a female,
is performing a singular movement, of which it is not
easy to divine the meaning. As each wavelet rolls in
she stoops to meet it, and plunges her face into the
salt water. She neither can be drinking or eating, for
she swallows nothing; nor can she be washing, for
there is no ambiguity about a duck's ablutions when it

240 ASSISTED VISION

sets to work ; the bird seems to be simply delighting
in the sparkling water and bright sunshine, and she
continues the motion as long as we continue to
watch her.

There is a pale lean form visible at the edge of
yonder floating tangle, so still and grey that it might
easily escape observation, but that a brace of mis-
chievous rooks, winging along the shore, turn aside
to make an unfriendly demonstration towards it. This
is a heron, lone and melancholy as the shade of
departed chivalry ; see how angrily he turns his sharp
lance towards the intruders, who, after wheeling two
or three times round him, wisely pursue their way, and
the other resumes his fishing. He stands mid-thigh in
the tide, his neck stiff and slightly projected, intently
watching the fringe of seaweed. He has seen some-
thing ; slowly, almost imperceptibly, he pushes himself
a few inches forward, till within striking distance ; like
a flash he darts his head javelin-fashion under water,
and when he raises it there is a fish of six inches
between his serrated mandibles. Three times within
ten minutes the same operation is successfully re-
peated; once he is balked at the critical moment by
the return of those tiresome rooks; each time he
secures a fish he turns towards the shore before
swallowing it, just as a cautious human angler would
do instinctively before unhooking a trout, so that if it
fell it should be in shallow water.

DECEMBER 241

XOI

This morning (December 31st, 1896) we have been
busy planting mistletoe berries on some young poplars.
Though not indigenous to Scotland, having
about the same northern range as the
nightingale, mistletoe grows very well north of the
Tweed if trouble be taken to sow it rightly. All that
is required, is to smear the viscid berry on the under
side of young branches (second year shoots are best)
of such trees as the plant loves — poplar, apple, haw-
thorn, lime or acacia, without any incision or tying
whatever. In a day or two the glutinous juice will
have dried up, binding the seed safely to the bark;
and so it will remain, till, some day next spring, you
may notice a tiny green sprout, arching over and
pressing its free end into the smooth bark. In that it
disappears, and nothing more is seen for one, two, or
even three seasons, except a swelling of the branch
where the young plant is sending its roots through the
tissues of the host. At last, a pair of small green
cotyledons are put forth, after which growth is steady
and rapid. Do not be disappointed if your young
plants do not bear berries at first ; for they are dioecious,
that is, flowers of different sexes grow on separate
plants, and require time to get acquainted with each
other. But all will come in the end, and once mistletoe
is established it is not easily got rid of.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, (late) Printers to Her Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

March, 1901.

Mr. Edward Arnold's

New and Popular Books.

Telegrams : 37 Bedford Street,

1 Scholarly, London.' Strand, London.

HIGHLANDS OF ASIATIC TURKEY.

By the EARL PERCY, M.P.

With 40 Illustrations from photographs taken by the Author and two
Maps, demy 8tv., 14^. net.

This volume contains the narrative of Lord Percy's second journey in
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A NEW NOVEL.

CASTING OF NETS.

By RICHARD BAGOT,

AUTHOR OF ' A ROMAN MYSTERY.'

Crown 8v0., 6s.

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THE KHAKI ALPHABET.

By L. D. POWLES.

With 26 full-page Illustrations and cover in colour, by Tom Browne,
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This alphabet was recited one evening at the Savage Club, and was
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DICKENS AS AN EDUCATOR.

By JAMES L. HUGHES,

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Crown 8v0., cloth, 6s.

This is a new volume in the ' International Education Series.' It
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FINLAND AND THE TSARS.

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A NEW EDITION, WITH SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER ON THE
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Demy Svo., i2S. 6d.

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THE JOURNAL OF MRS. FENTON

3n Snoia ano tbe Colonies, 1826-1830.

One volume, octavo, Ss. 6d. net.

Seventy-five years ago the writer of this journal married Captain
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Shortly afterwards Captain Fenton decided to quit the army and settle
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MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS

(FIRST SERIES).

By the RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BART., M.P.
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THE LONDON SCHOOL ATLAS.

Edited by H. O. ARNOLD -FORSTER, M.P.

WITH AN EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION

By DR. A. J. HERBERTSON,

HON. SECRETARY OF THE GBOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION.

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TRAVERSE TABLES.

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By HENRY LOUIS, M.A., A.R.S.M., F.I.C., F.G.S., etc.,

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LECTURER IN MATHEMATICS, DURHAM COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, NE\VCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

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THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF
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AN INTRODUCTION TO PRACTICAL PHARMACOLOGY.

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ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH
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FRANCIS :

Gbe Xittle poor /Dban of assist.

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A SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMERCE

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SHADOWS OF THE WAR.

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THE STORY OF MY CAPTIVITY

DURING THE TRANSVAAL

WAR, 1899-1900.

By ADRIAN HOFMEYR.

With Portrait. One volume, crown 8w., 6s.

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A MEMOIR OF

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By LOUISA M. SABINE PASLEY.
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By THOMAS HOLMES.

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great judgment and good sense. ' — Saturday Review.

MILTON.

By WALTER RALEIGH,

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW,
AUTHOR OF 'STYLE,' 'THE ENGLISH NOVEL,' ETC.

Crown Si'O., cloth, 6s.

' Admirably written. We congratulate Prof. Raleigh upon what we do not hesitate to
call a beautiful as well as a stimulating book, one which suggests high hopes for the future
of English criticism.' — Athenaum.

' Prof. Raleigh's study of Milton is marked by sensitive and supple judgment, and by an
uncommon sense of poetic workmanship no less than of poetic imagination.' — Literature.

'A notable piece of criticism. A book which it is a pleasure to read and to applaud.' —
Saturday Review.

' Prof. Raleigh's study is decidedly the most important deliverance en Milton since
Pattison. ' — Manchester Guardian.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF
ZACHARY MACAULAY.

By the VISCOUNTESS KNUTSFORD.
With Portrait. Demy t>vo., i6s.

' By judicious selections from Zachary Macaulay's correspondence, with no more com-
mentary or supplement than serves to elucidate the story, Lady Knutsford has done
justice to his memory, and made a welcome addition to the records of the famous group
of philanthopists.' — Athenaum.

' Full justice is now done by his granddaughter, Lady Knutsford, to his great philan-
thropic activity, and it is to be hoped that her volume, which has been neatly put together,
will have a considerable vogue.' — Globe.

FOOD AND THE PRINCIPLES OF
DIETETICS.

By ROBERT HUTCHISON, M.D. EDIN., M.R.C.P.,

ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN TO THE LONDON HOSPITAL AND TO THE HOSPITAL FOR SICK
CHILDREN, GREAT ORMOND STREET.

Illustrated, demy %vo., i6s. net.

' It is seldom we take up a book on dietetics which is at the same time so readable and
so scientific as this is. It is the author's intimate touch with the actualities of life which
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are found on every page.' — Hospital.

' The most valuable work of the kind which has yet appeared. The arrangement of the
work is admirably systematic.' — Manchester Guardian.

' A well- written and complete treatise on that most important of all daily questions,
what to eat and drink, and can be heartily recommended to all those for whom it has been
written — medical men and the general public alike.' — Literature.

ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR.

By C. LLOYD MORGAN, F.R.S.,

AUTHOR OF 'ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE," 'HABIT AND INSTINCT,' ETC.

Large crown 8v0., with nearly thirty Illustrations, los. 6d.

' Mr. Lloyd Morgan has always plenty to say that is novel in his books, and he says it
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problems of modern biology, the relation of the reasoning power of man to apparently
similar attributes in lower animals.' — Daily Chronicle.

' The book is full of interesting summaries of recent studies of animal habits.' — Academy.

' " Animal Behaviour " has all the merits of Prof. Morgan's previous works. Pleasantly
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by anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of psychology, and will lead him up to
the best that is known and has been thought about the psychology of animals.' — Man-
chester Guardian.

AN ESSAY ON PERSONALITY AS A
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLE.

By the Rev. WILFRID RICHMOND, M A.
One volume, 8v<?., los. 6d.

'A remarkably interesting work, dealing as it does with that most profound of subjects,
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10

MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS.

(SECOND SERIES.)

By the Right Hon. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BART., F.R.S.

One TO!., large crown 8vo., with Illustrations in Photo-
gravure, etc., is. 6d.

' Whether, indeed, to while away an idle half-hour at home, on a railway journey, or as
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work of its kind. The epithet " delightful " suits it exactly. '—Nature.

' Sir Herbert Maxwell has written a book which has more in it of the true insight and
joy in Nature than a shelf of inflated essays and tortuous poetry. It is a volume of excel-
lent gossip, the note-book of a well-informed and high-spirited student of Nature and
his fellows, where the sportsman's ardour is tempered always with the sympathy of the
lover of wild things, and the naturalist's interest is leavened with the humour of a cultivated
man of the world.'— Spectator.

' The present volume is to the full as delightful as its predecessor. These notes and
reflections of a keen sportsman and a keen, often sensitive, observer of Nature, are of a
kind that appeals to a larger audience than any mere sportsman can command.'— St.
James's Gazette.

NEW NOVELS.

CASTING OF NETS. By RICHARD BAGOT. (See
page i.)

LORD LINLITHGOW. By MORLEY ROBERTS, Author
of 'The Colossus,' 'A Son of Empire,' etc. Second Edition,
crown 8vo., 6s.

'Well imagined and well written.' — Literature.
' A smart political novel. ' — Leefs Mercury.

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'A clever, sparkling, amusing, political novel.' — Weekly Register.
' A brilliant book.'— The Lady.

THE DUKE. By J. STORER CLOUSTON, Author of
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' A most diverting novel, full of entertainment and humour.' — Pilot.
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' Mr. Clouston's novel has quite excellent humour. The story is convincingly and very
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' A really clever and amusing novel.'- — Liverpool Post.

' There is not a single dull page in the book.' — Leeds Mtrtnrj.

' A capital story.'— Gentlewoman.

ROSE ISLAND. By W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of
' The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' etc. Crown 8vo., 6s.

1 It is one of the best sea stories that was ever penned. It is full of good character-
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VERITY. By SIDNEY PICKERING, Author of ' Wan-
derers,' etc. Crown 8vo., 6s.

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' Can be safely read by the most fastidious, and comes as a welcome relief to much of
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JENNY OF THE VILLA. By Mrs. C. H. RADFORD.

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1 We have read this book with sheer delight. There is freshness and originality in it.
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' Jenny Finzel is a charming character. Mrs. Radford is indeed a true artist. The
book is natural, and that in itself is high praise. The style is graceful, quiet, and un-
affected ; the pathos is that of real life, and runs deep.' — Queen.

RED POTTAGE. By MARY CHOLMONDELEY. Forty-
second Thousand. Crown 8vo., 6s.

2—2

PUBLICATIONS OF THE ESSEX HOUSE
PRESS.

These books are printed at Essex House, on the presses used by the
late Mr. William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, which were purchased
by the Guild of Handicraft. Members of Mr. Morris's staff are also
retained at the Essex House Press, and it is the hope of the Guild of
Handicraft by this means to continue in some measure the tradition of
good printing and fine workmanship which William Morris revived.

A new type has been designed by Mr. C. R. Ashbee, and is nearly
ready ; in the meantime the books of the Essex House Press are being
printed in a fine eighteenth-century Caslon fount, with specially designed
ornaments and initials. It is gratifying to note that the demand for the
limited editions of the books already issued is steady and persistent, and
it will probably not be long before they are out of print.

Subscribers to the complete series of Essex House Publications are
given priority for any new book issued, and the number of subscribers
is constantly increasing.

The following volume of the Vellum Series is just ready :
Gray's Elegy written in a Country Churchyard. The third

of the Vellum Series. This book will be in vellum throughout, with rubricated
initials, and there will be a hand-coloured wood-block frontispiece, designed by
Mr. GEORGE THOMSON, of the grave of Gray in Stoke Pogis Churchyard, Bucks.
The edition is limited to 125 copies. Price £2 2s. net.

13

In preparation:
An Endeavour, towards the Teaching- of John Ruskin and

William Morris. Being an account of the Work and Aims of the Guild of
Handicraft. By C. R. ASHBEE. 250 copies. This will be the first book in
the new Essex House type.

The Psalms Of David, according to the text of the Anglican Prayer-
Book.

Erasmus' Praise of Folly. Sir THOMAS CHALLONER'S translation

(Elizabethan).

The publications already issued are :

1. Benvenuto Cellini's Treatises on Metal Work and Sculpture.

By C. R. ASHBEE. 600 copies. A few still left. Price 355. net.

2. The Hymn Of Bardaisan, the first Christian Poem, rendered into

English verse from the original Syriac, by F. CRAWFORD BURKITT, of Trinity
College, Cambridge. 250 copies. [Out of print.

3. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Edited from the earlier editions by

JANET E. ASHBEE, with a frontispiece by REGINALD SAVAGE. Vellum cover.
750 copies. Price 303. net.

4. The Church of Saint Mary Stratford atte Bow. 250 copies.

[Out of print.

5. Shelley's Adonais. Vellum series. 50 copies. {Out of print.

6. Shakespeare's Poems. 450 copies. [Out of print.

7. The Eve Of St. Agues. By JOHN KEATS. Vellum series.

125 copies. Price £2 2s. net. [.Out of print.

8. The Courtyer of Count Baldesar Castillo, divided into Foure

Bookes, Done into Englyshe by THOMAS HOBY. 200 copies. [Ottt of print.

These volumes are published on behalf of the Essex House Press by
Mr. EDWARD ARNOLD, and can be ordered either from him or from any
Bookseller.

14

SOUVENIRS FROM THE HOLY LAND.

' A souvenir of Christmas and its sacred and beautiful associations at
once peculiarly appropriate and attractive has been prepared by the
Rev. Harvey B. Greene, who has spent, it appears, three springs in
gathering and pressing, with the aid of native helpers, wild flowers from
the Holy I^nd. These have been tastefully and skilfully mounted in
books and on cards, which should please the eyes and touch the hearts
of many. The largest collection, containing seventeen specimens, bears
the title of "Wild Flowers from Palestine"; a smaller set of twelve
examples is embraced in " Pressed Flowers from the Holy Land "; while
the single Flower from the Christ Land is an ideal Christmas Card.
Bona-fides is guaranteed by printed letters from the British and American
Consuls at Jerusalem, Dean Hole of Rochester has written an introduc-
tion to the Flower Volumes, and Mr. Greene has himself supplied letter-
press descriptions and Scripture references. But the Syrian wild flowers
speak most eloquently for themselves.' — Scotsman.

Mr. Harvey Greenes deeply interesting souvenirs can be obtained
in the following forms :

i. WILD FLOWERS FROM PALESTINE.

<5atbereo ano presses in Palestine,
With an Introduction by the Very REV. S. REYNOLDS HOLE,

DEAN OF ROCHESTER.

Cloth elegant, i6mo., 45. 6d.

2. PRESSED FLOWERS FROM THE HOLY

LAND.

(Batbereo anD pressed in Palestine.

With an Introduction by DEAN HOLE.

Tastefully bound, ^2 mo., paper, 2s. 6d.

3. A FLOWER FROM THE CHRIST LAND.
B lovely Cbristmas CarO containing a Single presses fflower.

Price 6d.

' Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.'

BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES.

Adderley. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. (See page 6.)

Alexander. RECOLLECTIONS OF A HIGHLAND SUBALTERN,
during the Campaigns of the 93rd Highlanders in India, under Colin Campbell,
Lord Clyde, in 1857-1859. By Lieutenant-Colonel W. GORDON ALEXANDER.
Illustrations and Maps. Demy 8vo., cloth, i6s.

Arnold. PASSAGES IN A WANDERING LIFE. By THOMAS
ARNOLD, M.A. Demy 8vo., with Portrait, 123. 6d.

Boyle. THE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE DEAN OF SALISBURY.
By the Very Rev. G. D. BOYLE, Dean of Salisbury. With Photogravure Portrait.
Second Edition. One vol., demy 8vo., cloth, i6s.

Clough. A MEMOIR OF ANNE J. CLOUGH, Principal of Newnham
College, Cambridge. By her Niece, BLANCHE A. CLOUGH. With Portraits.
8vo., 12s. 6d.

De Vere. RECOLLECTIONS OF AUBREY DE VERE. Third Edition,
with Portrait. Demy 8vo., l6s.

Fenton. THE JOURNAL OF MRS. FENTON. (See page 3.)

Hare. MARIA EDGEWORTH: her Life and Letters. Edited by
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE, Author of ' The Story of Two Noble Lives,' etc. With
Portraits. Two vols., crown 8vo., i6s. net.

Hervey. HUBERT HERVEY, STUDENT AND IMPERIALIST.
By the Right Hon. EARL GREY. Demy 8vo., Illustrated, 75. 6d.

Hole. THE MEMORIES OF DEAN HOLE. By the Very Rev. S.
REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester. With Illustrations from Sketches by
Leech and Thackeray. Popular Edition. Crown 8vo., 6s.

Hole. MORE MEMORIES : Being Thoughts about England spoken in
America. By Dean HOLE. With Frontispiece. Demy 8vo., i6s.

Hole. A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. By Dean HOLE. Illustrated.
Demy 8vo., i6s.

Hole. A LITTLE TOUR IN IRELAND. By ' OXONIAN' (Dean HOLE).
Illustrated by JOHN LEECH. Large crown 8vo., 6s.

Holmes. RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON POLICE COURT,

By THOMAS HOLMES. (See page 8.)

Holland. LETTERS OF. MARY SIBYLLA HOLLAND. Selected and
edited by her Son, BERNARD HOLLAND. Second Edition. Crown 8vo.,
75. 6d. net.

Jowett. BENJAMIN JOWETT, MASTER OF BALLIOL. A Personal
Memoir.
Cloth, 35.

Memoir. By the Hon. L. A. TOLLEMACHE. Fourth Edition, with portrait.

lie Fanu. SEVENTY YEARS OF IRISH LIFE. By the late W. R.
LE FANU. Popular Edition. Crown 8vo., 6s.

i6

Macaulay. THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF ZACHARY

MACAULAY. By Viscountess KNUTSFORD. (See page 8.)

Macdonald. THE MEMOIRS OF THE LATE SIR JOHN A.
MACDONALD, G.C.B., First Prime Minister of Canada. Edited by JOSEPH
POPE, his Private Secretary. With Portraits. Two vols., demy 8vo., 325.

Merivale. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DEAN MERIVALE. With
Selections from his Correspondence. With Portrait, demy 8vo., i6s.

Morley. THE LIFE OF HENRY MORLEY, LL.D., Professor of
English Literature at University College, London. By the Rev. H. S.
SOLLY, M.A. With two Portraits. 8vo., 123. 6d.

Mott. A MINGLED YARN. The Autobiography of EDWARD SPENCER
MOTT (NATHANIEL GUBBINS). Author of ' Cakes and Ale,' etc. Large crown
8vo., I2s. 6d.

Pasley. A MEMOIR OF ADMIRAL SIR T. S. PASLEY. (Seepage 7.)

Pigou. PHASES OF MY LIFE. By the Very Rev. FRANCIS PIGOU,
Dean of Bristol. Sixth Edition. With Portrait. Crown 8vo., 6s.

Rochefort. THE ADVENTURES OF MY LIFE. By HENRI ROCHE-
FORT. Second Edition. Two vols., large crown 8vo., 253.

Roebuck. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LETTERS of the Right
Hon. JOHN ARTHUR ROEBUCK, Q.C., M.P. Edited by ROBERT EADON
LEADER. With two Portraits. Demy 8vo., i6s.

Simpson. MANY MEMORIES OF MANY PEOPLE. By Mrs. M. C.
SIMPSON (nee Nassau Senior). Fourth Edition. Demy 8vo., i6s.

Stevenson. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By WALTER RALEIGH,
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Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

Tollemache. TALKS WITH MR. GLADSTONE. By the Hon. L. A.
TOLLEMACHE. (See page 5.)

Twining. RECOLLECTIONS OF LIFE AND WORK. Being the
Autobiography of LOUISA TWINING. One vol., 8vo., cloth, 155.

THEOLOGY.

Hole. ADDRESSES TO WORKING MEN from Pulpit and Platform.
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Hole. FAITH WHICH WORKETH BY LOVE. A Sermon preached
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Onyx. A REPORTED CHANGE IN RELIGION. By ONYX. Crown

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Fisher. FINLAND AND THE TSARS. By JOSEPH R. FISHER, B.A.
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Gardner. FRIENDS OF THE OLDEN TIME. By ALICE GARDNER,
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trated, 2s. 6d.

Gardner. ROME : THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD. By ALICE
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Milner. ENGLAND IN EGYPT. By Sir ALFRED MILNER, G.C.M.G.,
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Odysseus. TURKEY IN EUROPE. By ODYSSEUS. (See page 6.)

Oman. A HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By CHARLES OMAN, Deputy
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Oman. ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By
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Price. A SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMERCE AND
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Kansome. THE BATTLES OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. Extracted

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Rendel. NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE : Its Municipal Origin and Growth.
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i3

LITERATURE AND CRITICISM.

BelL KLEINES HAUSTHEATER. Fifteen Little Plays in German for
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Butler. SELECT ESSAYS OF SAINTE BEUVE. Chiefly bearing on
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Collingwood. THORSTEIN OF THE MERE : a Saga of the Northmen
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Cook. THE DEFENSE OF POESY, otherwise known as AN APOLOGY
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Cook. A DEFENCE OF POETRY. By PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
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Davidson. A HANDBOOK TO DANTE. By GIOVANNI A. SCARTAZZINI.
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M.A. Crown 8vo., cloth, 55.

EUacombe. THE PLANT-LORE AND GARDEN-CRAFT OF
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Essex House Press Publications. (See pages 12 and 13.)

Fleming. THE ART OF READING AND SPEAKING. By the
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Cloth, 35. 6d.

Garnett. SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH PROSE FROM ELIZABETH
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Goschen. THE CULTIVATION AND USE OF IMAGINATION.
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Harrison. STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN LITERATURE. By
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Hudson. THE LIFE, ART AND CHARACTERS OF SHAKE-
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Hughes. DICKENS AS AN EDUCATOR. By J. L. HUGHES. (See
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Kuhns. THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN DANTE'S 'DIVINA
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Lang. LAMB'S ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. With an Introduction
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19

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Maud. WAGNER'S HEROINES. By CONSTANCE MAUD. Illustrated
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Raleigh. STYLE. By WALTER RALEIGH, Professor of English Literature
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Raleigh. MILTON. By Prof. WALTER RALEIGH. (See page 8.)

Quiller-Couch. HISTORICAL TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. By
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Rodd. THE CUSTOMS AND LORE OF MODERN GREECE.

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Schelling. BEN JONSON'S TIMBER. Edited by Professor F. E.
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POETRY.

Collins. A TREASURY OF MINOR BRITISH POETRY. Selected
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Crabbe. POEMS OF GEORGE CRABBE. Selected and Edited by
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Glencairn, R. J. POEMS AND SONGS OF DEGREES. By ROBERT J.
GLENCAIRN. Crown 8vo., 55. net.

Gummere. OLD ENGLISH BALLADS. Selected and Edited by
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Crown 8vo., cloth, 53. 6d.

Holland. VERSES. By MAUD HOLLAND (Maud Walpole). Crown
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Rodd. BALLADS OF THE FLEET. By Sir RENNEL RODD, K.C.M.G.
Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

FEDA, AND OTHER POEMS, CHIEFLY LYRICAL. With etched
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THE UNKNOWN MADONNA, AND OTHER POEMS. With Frontis-
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THE VIOLET CROWN, AND SONGS OF ENGLAND. With Photo-
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FICTION.

About. TRENTE ET QUARANTE. Translated by Lord NEWTON.
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' Adalet.' HADJIRA : A Turkish Love Story. By ' ADALET.' Cloth, 6s.

Adderley. STEPHEN REMARX. The Story of a Venture in Ethics.
By the Hon. and Rev. JAMES ADDERLEY, formerly Head of the Oxford House
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Adderley. PAUL MERCER. A Tale of Repentance among Millions.
By the Hon. and Rev. JAMES ADDERLEY. Third Edition. Cloth, 35. 6d.

Bagot. CASTING OF NETS. By R. BAGOT. 6s. (See page i.)

Bunsen. A WINTER IN BERLIN. By MARIE VON BUNSEN.
Translated by A. F. D. Second Edition. Crown 8vo., 53.

Burneside. THE DELUSION OF DIANA. By MARGARET BURNESIDE.
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Charleton. NETHERDYKE. By R. J. CHARLETON. One vol., crown
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Cherbuliez. THE TUTOR'S SECRET. (Le Secret du Pre"cepteur.)
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Chester. A PLAIN WOMAN'S PART. By NORLEY CHESTER.
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TRAVEL AND SPORT.

Bagot. SHADOWS OF THE WAR. By DOSIA BAGOT. (See page 7).

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Bottome. A SUNSHINE TRIP : GLIMPSES OF THE ORIENT.
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Bradley. HUNTING REMINISCENCES OF FRANK GILLARD
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Bull. THE CRUISE OF THE ' ANTARCTIC ' TO THE SOUTH
POLAR REGIONS. By H. J. BULL, a member of the Expedition. With
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W. G. BURN-MURDOCH. Demy 8vo., 155.

Burton. TROPICS AND SNOWS: a Record of Sport and Adventure
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Chapman. WILD NORWAY. By ABEL CHAPMAN, Author of 'Wild
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Freshfield. THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS. By
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Gleichen. WITH THE BRITISH MISSION TO MENELIK, 1897.
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Gordon. PERSIA REVISITED. With Remarks on H.I.M. Mozuffer-
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Grey. IN MOORISH CAPTIVITY. An Account of the ' Tourmaline '
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Hofmeyr. THE STORY OF MY CAPTIVITY DURING THE
TRANSVAAL WAR. (See page 7.)

23

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Percy. HIGHLANDS OF ASIATIC TURKEY. By EARL PERCY.
(See page i.)

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Portal. THE BRITISH MISSION TO UGANDA. By the late Sir
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Demy 8vo., i6s.

Thompson. REMINISCENCES OF THE COURSE, THE CAMP
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THE SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY.

Edited by the Right Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P.

A Re-issue, in handsome volumes, of certain rare and entertaining books on
Sport, carefully selected by the Editor, and Illustrated by the best
Sporting Artists of the day, and with Reproductions of old Plates.
Library Edition, 155. a Volume. Large-Paper Edition, limited to 200 copies,

Two Guineas a volume. Also obtainable in Sets only, in fine leather

bindings. Prices on application.

VOLUME I.

Smith. THE LIFE OF A FOX, AND THE DIARY OF A HUNTS-
MAN. By THOMAS SMITH, Master of the Hambledon and Pytchley Hounds.
With Illustrations by the Author, and Coloured Plates by G. H. JALLAND.
Sir RALPH PAYNE-GALWEY, Bart., writes : ' It is excellent and beautifully produced.'
' Is sure to appeal to everyone who has had, or is about to have, a chance of a run with the
hounds, and those to whom an unkindly fate denies this boon will enjoy it for the joyous music
of the hounds which it brings to relieve the winter of our discontent amid London fogs.' — Pall
Mall Gazette.

' It will be a classic of fox-hunting till the end of time.' — Yorkshire Post.
' No hunting men should be without this book in their libraries.'— World.

VOLUME II.

Thornton. A SPORTING TOUR THROUGH THE NORTHERN
PARTS OF ENGLAND AND GREAT PART OF THE HIGHLANDS
OF SCOTLAND. By Colonel T. THORNTON, of Thornville Royal, in
Yorkshire. With the Original Illustrations by GARRARD, and other Illustrations
and Coloured Plates by G. E. LODGE.

'Sportsmen of all descriptions will gladly welcome the sumptuous new edition issued by Mr.
Edward Arnold of Colonel T. Thornton's " Sporting Tour," which has long been a scarce book.
— Daily News.

' It is excellent reading for all interested in sport.'— Black and White.

' A handsome volume, effectively illustrated with coloured plates by G. E. Lodge, and with
portraits and selections from the original illustrations, themselves characteristic of the art and
sport of the time.'— Times.

VOLUME III.

•Cosmopolite. THE SPORTSMAN IN IRELAND. By a COSMOPOLITE.
With Coloured Plates and Black and White Drawings by P. CHENEY ix TRENCH,
and reproductions of the original Illustrations drawn by R. ALLEN, and engraved
by W. WESTALL, A.R.A.

' This is a most readable and entertaining book.1 — Pall Mall Gazette.

' As to the "get up " of the book we can only repeat what we said on the appearance of the
first of the set, that the series consists of the most tasteful and charming volumes at present
being issued by the English Press, and collectors of handsome books should find them not only
an ornament to their shelves, but also a sound investment.'

VOLUME IV.

Berkeley. REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. By the Hon.
GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY. With a Coloured Frontispiece and the original
Illustrations by JOHN LEECH, and several Coloured Plates and other Illustrations
by G. H. JALLAND.

'The latest addition to the sumptuous " Sportsman's Library " is here reproduced with all
possible aid from the printer and binder, with illustrations from the pencils of Leech and G. H.
Jalland.'— Globe.

'The Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley had one great quality of the raconteur. His self-revelations
and displays of vanity ar delightful.' — Times.

25

VOLUME V.

Scrope. THE ART OF DEERSTALKING. By WILLIAM SCROPE.
With Frontispiece by EDWIN LANDSEER, and nine Photogravure Plates of the
original Illustrations.

' With the fine illustrations by the Landseers and Scrope himself, this forms a most worthy
number of a splendid series.' — Pall Mall Gazette.

' Among the works published in connection with field sports in Scotland, none probably have
been more sought after than those of William Scrope, and although published more than fifty
years ago, they are still as fresh as ever, full of pleasant anecdote, and valuable for the many
practical hints which they convey to inexperienced sportsmen.' — field.

VOLUME VI.

Nimrod. THE CHASE, THE TURF, AND THE ROAD. By NIMROD.
With a Photogravure Portrait of the Author by D. MACLISE, R.A., and with
Coloured Photogravure and other Plates from the original Illustrations by
ALKEN, and several reproductions of old Portraits.

' Sir Herbert Maxwell has performed a real service for all who care for sport in republishing
Nimrod's admirable papers. The book is admirably printed and produced both in the matter
of illustrations and of binding.' — St. James's Gazette.

' A thoroughly well got-up book.'— World.

VOLUME VII.

Scrope. DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING. By WILLIAM

SCROPE. With coloured Lithographic and Photogravure reproductions of the
original Plates.

' This great classic of sport has been reissued by Mr. Edward Arnold in charming form.'—
Literature.

COUNTRY HOUSE.

Brown. POULTRY-KEEPING AS AN INDUSTRY FOR FARMERS
AND COTTAGERS. By EDWARD BROWN, F.L.S. (See page 5.)

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

PLEASURABLE POULTRY-KEEPING. Fully Illustrated. One vol.,
crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

INDUSTRIAL POULTRY-KEEPING. ^ Fully Illustrated. New Edition.

POULTRY FATTENING. Fully Illustrated. New Edition. Crown 8vo.,
is. 6d.

Cunningliam. THE DRAUGHTS POCKET MANUAL. By J. G. CUN-
NINGHAM. An introduction to the Game in all its branches. Small 8vo., with
numerous diagrams, is. 6d.

Elliot. AMATEUR CLUBS AND ACTORS. Edited by W. G. ELLIOT.
With numerous Illustrations by C. M. NEWTON. Large 8vo., 155.

26

Ellacombe. IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN. By the Rev.
H. N. ELLACOMBE, Vicar of Bitton, and Honorary Canon of Bristol. Author
of ' Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare.' With new Illustrations by
Major E. B. RICKETTS. Second Edition. Crown 8vo.f cloth, 6s.

Hole. A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. By the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS
HOLE, Dean of Rochester. Sixteenth Edition. Illustrated by H. G. MOON and
G. S. ELGOOD, R.I. Presentation Edition, with Coloured Plates, 6s. Popular
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Hole. A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN AND THE GARDENER.
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Holt. FANCY DRESSES DESCRIBED. By ARDERN HOLT. An
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Holt. GENTLEMEN'S FANCY DRESS AND HOW TO CHOOSE
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Maxwell. MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS. By SIR HERBERT
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'WYVERN'S' COOKERY BOOKS.

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

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Smith. THE PRINCIPLES OF LANDED ESTATE MANAGE-
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White. PLEASURABLE BEE-KEEPING. By C. N. WHITE, Lecturer
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One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

27
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Pell. BRITISH MERCHANT SEAMEN IN SAN FRANCISCO. By
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HARROW SCHOOL. Edited by E. W. HOWSON and G. TOWNSEND
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Hartshorne. OLD ENGLISH GLASSES. An Account of Glass Drinking-
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Herschell. THE BEGGARS OF PARIS. Translated from the French
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Pilkington. IN AN ETON PLAYING FIELD. The Adventures of
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29

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THE LONDON SCHOOL ATLAS. (See page 4.)

to autbors.

ABOUT -

PAGE

• 20 Glencairn, R. J.

PAGE

- 19

PAGE

Nimrod - - - 25

'Adalet'
Adams, E. Davenport

• 20 Gordon, Sir T. E.
- 31 Goschen, Rt. Hon. G. J.

- 22

Odysseus - - - 6

Adderley, Hon. and Rev. J

6, 20 : Graham, W. -

- 28

Oman, C. 5, 17

Alexander, W. Gordon
Ames, Ernest •

- 15 i Great Public Schools -
• 27 ' Greene, Harvey B.

• 27

14

Onyx - - - 16
Oxenden, Maud - - 21

A Moral Alphabet -

- 27 Grey, Earl

Paget, Charles E. - - 28

Andersen, Hans Christian

- 30 Grey, H. M. -

22

Pasley, Sir T. S. - -7

Arnold-Forster, H. O.

4, 28 Gummere, F. B.

10

Pearson, Karl - - 29

Arnold, Thomas
Ash bee, C. R. -

." H Hall, Bradnock

- 21

Pembrey, M. S. - - 4
Percy, Earl - • i, 23

Bagot, R.
Bagot, Dosia -
Bell, Mrs. Hugh
Bell, Napier -
Belloc, Hilaire
Benson, A. C. -
Berkeley, Hon. Grantley F.
Beynon, W. G. L. -
Bottome, Margaret -
Boyle, Very Rev. G. D.
Bradley, Cuthbert
Brown, Edward
Bull, H. J. -

Halliday, G. -
• i Hare, Augustus J. C.
• 7 Harrison, Frederic -
l8> 27 Harrison, S. Frances -
• 22 Harrow School
• J7 1 Hartshorne, Albert •
- 17 i Herschell, Lady
• 24 I Hervev, M. H.
- 22 Hill. Leonard -
- 22 ! Hoff, Dr. I. H. Van 'T.
• IS 1 Hofmeyr, A. -
• 22 ! Hole, Dean - - 15,
5, 25 Holland, Bernard
- 22 j Holland, Hon. Lionel

' 15

• 18

- 21

- 27
' 27

• 27

Perry, Prof. John - - 29
Phillips, C. D. F. - - 4
Pickering, Sidney - n
Pigou, Very Rev. Francis 6
Pike, Warburton - - 3
Pilkington, E. M. S. - - 7
Pinsent, EllenJ". - - i
Podmore, C. f - - i
Pollok, Lieut. -Colonel - 3
Portal, Sir Gerald H. - 3
Powles. L. D. - - - 2
Price, L. L. - - - 6
Pritchett, R. T. - - 23

Bunsen, Marie von
Burgess, John W.
Burkitt, F. Crawford -
Burneside, Margaret -
Burton, Capt. R. G. -
Butler, A. J. -

• 20 l Holland, Maud
- 28 Holland, Rev. F. J. -
- 13 i Holmes, Thomas
• 20 | Holt, Ardern -
• 22 Hopkinson. A. M.
• 18 ! Hopkins, E. W.

: i|
- 26

Quiller Couch, A. T. - - 19

Radford, Mrs. C. H. - • n
Raleigh, Walter - 8, 19
Ransome, Cyril - • 17
Raymond, Evelyn - - 31
Reed E T. • 13 27

Caunt, G. W. -

. A Hudson, H. N.

- 18

Chapman, Abel
Charleton, R. J.
Cherbuliez, Victor
Chester, Norley
Children's Favourite Series
Children's Hour Series
Cholmondeley, Mary -
Clough, Blanche A. -
Clouston, J. Storer
Clouston, K. Warren -
Clowes, W. Laird

. 22 | Hughes, J. L. -
. 20 Hutchinson. Horace G.
. 20 Hutchison, Robert
* 20 Indian Office Publications
. 3I Johnston. Annie Fellows
n, 20 \ Jowett, Benjamin
" J5 Kenney-Herbert
• IO!Knox, T. W. -
' 27 Knutsford, Lady
31 Kuhns L Oscar

2

• 9
• 3°

- 15
- 26

8,«'

Reid, Arnot - - - 23
Rendel. Hon. Daphne - 17
Reynolds, Rev. S. H. - 19
Richmond, Rev. Wilfrid - 9
Roberts, Morley - 10, 21
Rochefort, Henri - - 16
Rodd, Sir Rennel - - 19
Roebuck, Rt. Hon. J. A. - 16
Roy, Gordon - - - 21
Russell, W. Clark - - n
Schelling, Prof. F. E. • 19

Coleridge, M. E.

18

Scrope, William • 25

Collingwood, W. G. -
Collins, J. Churton -
Cook, Prof. A. S.
Cosmopolite -
Cunningham, J. G. -
Davidson, Thomas -
De Vcre, Aubrey

j'g 20 Ladd, G. T. -
' Q Lane. Andrew -
' 11 Le Fanu, W. R.
I " Legh, M. H. Cornwall
;1 Lehfeldt, Dr. R. A.
3 Lighthall, W. D.
' l8 Local Series -
[5 Lockwood, Sir Frank

• 28
- 18
- '5
30, 31
28

- 21

Shaw, C. Weeks - - 29
Shorland, F. W. - - 26
Simpson, Mrs. M. C. - - 16
Slatin Pasha, Sir Rudolf - 23
Smith, A. Donaldson - - 23
Smith, H. H. - - - 26
Smith, Thomas - -24

Dunmore, Earl of
Dymond, T. S.

" 20 London School Atlas
' 29 j Louis, H.

4

Sportsman Library - 24, 25
Stevenson, R. L - - 16

Edwards, R. W. K. -
Ellacombe, H. N.

• 20 Macdonald, Lt.-CoI. J. R.
l8. 26 Macdonald. Sir John A.

: 3

Stone, S. J. - - - 23
Streamer, Col. D. - - 28

Elliot, W. G. -
Essex House Publications
Falkner, J. Meade -
Fawcett, E. D.
Fell, Rev. J. -
Fenton, Mrs. -
Field, Mrs. E. M. -
Fisher, J. R. -

• 25 ; Mathews, Margaret H.
I2> 13 Maud, Constance
- 21 Maxse, L. T. -
- 31 1 Maxwell, Sir Herbert-
• 27 McNab, Frances
- 3 McNulty, Edward -
- 31 Merivale, J. A.
- 2 Milner, Sir Alfred -

• 3°
19. 3°
• 29

• 23

- 21

- 16
17

Tatham, H. F. W. - - 17
Taylor, Isaac - - 29
Thompson, Col. R. F. Meysey 23
Thornton, Col. T. - 24
Tollemache, Hon. L. A. 5
Turkey in Europe - i
Twining, Louisa - - 16

Fleming, Canon

- 1 8 Montresor, F. F.

Wallace, Helen - - 21

Ford, Isabella O.
Freshfield, Douglas W.
Frye, Alexis -

• 21 j Morgan, C. Lloyd - 9,
- 22 1 Morley, Henry
- 31 Mott, E. S. -

- 16

Warkworth, Lord - - 23
White, C. N. - - - 26
Whitman, C. O. - - 29

Gardner, Alice
Garnett, J. M.
Gaunt, Mary -

j- Munroe, Kirk •
• 18 i Nash, Henry -
• 21 National Review

• 3°
• 3°
- 29

Williams, N. Wynne - - 21
Wilson, Ernest - - 29
Wingate, Sir F. R. - - 23

Gleichen, Count

• 22 ! Newton, Lord -

Young, Charles A. - 29

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