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MOSOLLAM THE JEW.

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attention and provoke comment from the most unobservant. After circling some half-dozen times round and round and right above our heads, the bird, with one loud parting scream-and yet scream is not the word either; the Gaelic guileag is nearer it-and with an upward oblique sweep, so beautifully easy and effortless that it seemed the result of a simple act of volition rather than a grand pas in volitation, flew away to join his companions, who were now heard clamouring over a coal-fish goil or boil, as the Highlanders call the ebullition of the surface play of a shoal of sea-fish. The men looked at each other and at us meaningly; and at last out it came. "Small chance," said one of them, "have we of anything like a good fishing this evening: better for us to stay at home." "Why so?" we quietly inquired. "Well, sir," was the response, "I never knew a gull act in that sort of way but it meant bad luck in fishing, and the non-accomplishment of one's errand afloat, whatever it might be." The rest agreed with the speaker, but we persuaded them, after some trouble, to proceed to their fishing-ground, to give it a trial at least; and when, at a much later hour, they returned, we were on the beach to meet them, and found that after all they had made an excellent fishing. There and then we sat down beside them as they were dividing their fish into equal shares, and told them the following story from Josephus, Against Apion. Quoting from Hecatæus, the great Jewish historian proceeds :-" As I was myself going to the Red Sea, there followed us a man, whose name was Mosollam; he was one of the Jewish horsemen who conducted us. He was a person of great courage, of a strong body, and by all allowed to be the most skilful archer that was either among the Greeks or barbarians. Now, this man, as people were in great numbers passing along the road, and a certain augur was observing an augury by a bird, and requiring them all to stand still, inquired what they staid for. Hereupon the augur showed him the bird from whence he told his augury, and told him that if

the bird staid where he was, they ought all to stand still; but that if he got up and flew onward, they must go forward; but that if he flew backward, they must retire again. Mosollam made no reply, but drew his bow and shot at the bird, and hit him and killed him; and as the augur and some others were very angry, and wished imprecations upon him, he answered them thus:'Why are you so mad as to take this most unhappy bird into your hands for how can this bird give us any true information concerning our march, which could not foresee how to save himseif? For had he been able to foreknow what was future, he would not have come to this place, but would have been afraid lest Mosollam the Jew would shoot him as he has done, and kill him.'" The men, who had listened most attentively, smiled as we concluded, and agreed that Mosollam must have been a very sensible man; and vowed that for the future they would attach no more meaning or importance to a circling, screaming gull, than to the chirping of a wren in the elder bushes at the cottage doors. And what after all, the reader may ask, brought the black-backed gull circling and screaming over your heads? Well, from its great and immense spread of wing, it was probably the leader and guardian of its own particular flock, and as such thought it his duty to reconnoitre in person, in case the five men about the boat on the beach should have sinister intentions as to him or his. His scream or guileag was just his way of telegraphing the results of his observations to his distant companions; or he may have been scolding us in his own manner for our manifest intention of leaving the land, and invading what he considered his own proper element and territory, the sea. A more prosaic explanation, if it please you better, is perhaps to be found in the fact that the boat was internally largely incrusted with fish scales, and smelt strongly of fish, and that that, to one of his sensitive olfactory nerves, was the only or main attraction, the rest being mere idle curiosity, from which

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birds are no more exempt than men. One thing only is certain, if difficult to be accounted for, and that is, that individual gulls frequently act as this gull acted when a boat is about to put off from the shore in the fishing season, which being occasionally connected, as must sometimes happen, however accidentally, with an unsuccessful fishing adventure, gave rise to the silly superstition which, by the aid of Flavius Josephus, we were able in this instance at least successfully to combat.

CHAPTER LIII.

Heat in Mid-August-Early Planting and Sowing-Over-ripening of Crops-MedusaStinging Jelly-Fish-The amount of solid matter in Jelly-Fish.

THE unprecedented heat of mid-August lasted with us here precisely a fortnight [September 1876]. Beginning on the 10th, it continued with little intermission or mitigation till the 24th, when the wind suddenly chopped round to the south-west, our rainy quarter; the sky assumed the threatening aspect, an ugly interminglement of black and dark grey, with which we are only too familiar, and rain began to fall with that dour, persistent pattering, and aimless horizontal drift, which sufficed to convince the most careless and unobservant student of our West Highlands meteorology that it was neither a thunder-plump nor a mere passing shower, but a determined and regular "set-in" of probably some days, or, it might be, of some weeks' duration. The last ten days have accordingly been more or less wet, and as the corn over the country generally is about ripe for scythe and sickle, many an anxious eye is cast heavenwards with wistfullest glance, morning, noon, and night, in hopes of a change of wind and a return to fair weather. We are about tired of advocating the advantages of early sowing to our friends of the West Highlands. We are content with once again stating the fact that, having sown early, our own corn was cut in ripe and good condition on the 17th August, and safely housed without having once been touched by a single drop of rain. A single armful of such well-preserved provender is worth a whole back-burden of the washed-out and sapless stuff

THE PROPHET NOT APPRECIATED.

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that usually goes by the name of "wintering" and "winter keep in this and the neighbouring districts. It is proper to say, however, that, though so difficult to move to an earlier date in cornsowing, our people here have of recent years been more amenable to good advice in the matter of potato culture. This year a large breadth of potatoes was planted in March and early April, and the consequence is that these are now nearly ripe, and of the best quality, stronger too, and in every way better able to resist the attacks of blight—absit omen !—should it unfortunately come their way, as we hope it won't; while the still green and half-ripe tubers of later plantings would probably suffer largely under a similar visitation. Not even when it is quite ready for the sickle do people generally cut their corn timeously. Too often it is allowed to ripen overmuch, till the straw is over-dry and sapless, besides the inevitable loss of grain in the stooking and subsequent ingathering. It is very much the same with hay. As a rule, it is left too long uncut, by which its quality is sadly deteriorated. Nor is this mistake in haymaking peculiar to the west coast, but much too common over all the country. Even in Morayshire and about Inverness the hay crop is, as a rule, allowed to ripen over-much. If it were cut ten days or a fortnight earlier it would weigh more, smell sweeter, be more nutritious, and better every way than under the present system, which allows it not merely to ripen, but to more than ripen, to wither up and lose most of its sap and seed before it is cut and secured. It may, perhaps, be laid down as an axiom that root crops cannot be allowed to ripen over-much; cereals and grasses most certainly may.

Cavill's recent attempt to swim the Channel, in rivalry of Captain Webb's feat, was a failure, and had medical aid not been so opportunely at hand when the swimmer, comatose and unconscious, was lifted out of the water by his friends in the attendant lugger, the venture, noteworthy, though unsuccessful, for its pluck and

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