and she threatened to tell him a bit of her mind as to his doings on his return-the colt at least had been sold, and well sold, for the alder smoke had gone in the best and luckiest of all directions, towards the east, in the direction of the rising sun; and she had never known the omen fail. The curious thing is that within an hour or so on that very evening the man returned, and counted into his wife's lap two pounds and four shillings sterling over and above the expected price of the colt, as agreed upon at home. The only other curious thing that we could gather in connection with the superstition is that the alder branches must be cut specially for the occasion, and by a virgin. It was so in this case; and we are gravely assured that, if it had been otherwise, the ascending smoke would either have drifted hither and thither without a purpose, unsteadily, or have uselessly intermingled with that of the neighbouring cottages. The superstition, you must know, is a very old one; the Greeks and Romans practised it, and from them it spread widely over the European Continent. In books on magic and divination it is called Capnomancy, derived, as our friend Professor Blackie could tell you better than anybody else, from the Greek Capnos, smoke, and manteia, divination, witchcraft. The ancients paid attention principally to the smoke of sacrifices, as well as to the briskness with which the fire burned. If the smoke ascended in a straight columnar body zenithwards, it was a favourable omen; if it was violently blown aside, or fell back over the altar and the sacrificers, it was of evil augury. Our Highland dame's notion of its taking an easterly course, towards the direction of the breaking day, of the dawn, and the morning sun, seems to us full of a rough and rude poetry such as you frequently meet with in carefully examining into the details of even the grossest superstitions. Having had occasion to be of some little service to the priestess in this rare act of divination, we had the whole from her own lips, though she was averse at first, as is generally the case when a clergyman is the

inquirer, to entering upon the subject at all. How these practices root themselves among a people, defying eradication, is very extraordinary.

Did you ever, reader, crack a nut? Not the aristocratic walnut or filbert over your wine, but the far superior, rich, ripe hazel nut in its season from off the hazel bough, when the bright autumnal sun was overhead, and the autumnal breeze stirred the leaves around you, their multitudinous murmur resembling the far-heard music of the restless sea. A ripe hazel nut is good anywhere, but best of all when gathered by your own hand in its native wild wood from the overhanging branch, whence the beautiful cluster nods at you as if soliciting your attention, now and again, as you approach to pull it, seeming to delight in playing a game of bo-peep with you among the leaves, like as you have seen the Pleiades at times when, though the night be clear, many blanket-like clouds are chasing each other in wild career athwart the starry blue. Throughout the whole range of poetry, the hazel nut, though often mentioned, has never perhaps had so much justice done to it as by the Gaelic bard Duncan Bàn Macintyre. In his Coire-Cheathaich, one of his finest poems, he says:

Bha cus ra' fhaotainn de chnothan caoine,
'S cha b' iad na cacohagan aotrom gann,
Ach bagailt mhaola, bu taine plaoisge,

"Toirt brigh á laoghan na' maoth-shlat fann :

S rath nan caochan 'na dhosaibh caorainn,

'S na phreasaibh caola, làn chraobh a's mhearg;
Na gallain ùra, 's na faillein dhlùtha,

'S am barrach dùinte mu chùl nan crann.

Ewen Maclachlan, commonly styled "of Aberdeen," because he taught the Grammar School there, and there died, but who was, in truth, a Lochaber man-nay, a Nether Lochaber man, born and bred, and whose ashes rest in Killevaodain of Ardgour, without, we are ashamed to confess it, "One gray stone to mark his grave;"

he, born at Tarrachalltuinn-the Height of Hazel Trees-in our parish, knew something of hazel nuts, and thus happily describes them in their season :

'S glan fàile nan cno gaganach,

Air ard-Shlios nan cròc bad-dhuilleach;
'S trom fasor am por bagailteach,

Air bharr nam fad-gheug sòlasach ;
Theid brigh nam fiuran slat-mheurach,
'An cridhe nam ùr-chnap blasadach ;
Gur brisg-gheal sùgh a chagannaich,
Do neach a chaguas dòrlach dhin.
'S clann bheag a ghnà le'm pocannan,
A streup ri h-ard nan dos-chrannabh,
A bhuain nan cluaran mog-mheurach,
Gu lùgh'or, docoir, luath-lamhach;
'Nuair dh'fhaoisgear as na mogail iad,

'S a bhristear plaoisg nan cochall diu,
Gur caoin am maoth-bhlas fortanach
Bhios air an fhros neo-bhruaileanach.

Our nuts are unusually plentiful this year, and of a size and flavour that we do not recollect ever to have seen equalled. They are now at that stage of ripeness when they are most delicious to the taste, and one may indulge in any amount of them with perfect safety. Most people are fond of nuts, but if the reader wants to enjoy the full flavour, to get out of a nut all that is in it, let him take the following recipe:-" First of all, let the nut be cracked, if possible, between your own molars, for these are, after all, the first and most natural and best of all nut-crackers, better quoad hoc than an instrument of the purest silver or steel; and there is besides, remember, something pleasant to the palate in the feel and flavour even of an uncracked nut. Having cracked your nut, then--and fairly placed between the grinders, a really good nut is not difficult to crack, the worst nuts being always the most difficult to deal with, for the more insignificant the kernel the thicker and dourer the shell-having cracked your nut and extracted the kernel,

HOW TO ENJOY A NUT.

209

whole if possible, introduce it into your mouth, not per se, by itself, as is commonly done, but with a small fragment of the shell,-a bit of pin's head size will do. Proceed now to masticate the delicious morsel, and confess that there is a delicacy and flavour about a hazel nut that you knew not how to extract in full, although in your day you had cracked your bushels of them, until you were taught it from Nether Lochaber. The philosophy of the thing is that the particle of shell introduced with the kernel causes the act of mastication to be performed more thoroughly than it otherwise would be, setting free the full flavour and aroma-all, in short, that a nut has to give.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Strength of Insects-Necrophorus Vespillo, or Burying-Beetle-Fœtid smell of-How Willie Grimmond earned an Honest Penny in Glencoe.

THE strength of insects, proportionably to their weight and size, was probably the first characteristic in the minor world to arrest the attention and call forth the admiration of entomologists; and soon afterwards, we may believe, the ingenuity, patience, and perseverance displayed by these pigmies in dealing with any self-imposed piece of labour, must have made the intelligent observer feel and acknowledge, even if he could not repeat and had never heard of the mad-wise Hamlet's dictum, that—

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Take an example of something wonderful in insect life, as it chanced to come under our notice a few days ago [September 1872]. We were raking hay-raking hay, too, after others had raked the same ground shortly before us, for we are most particular that, both for the look of the thing, as well as for the profit, not a wisp, not a strawlet shall be left upon the ground-when, as we raked, we came across a dead mole. No rare or wonderful thing, the reader may exclaim, but rare enough when you come to think of it, and wonderful enough, too, to attract the attention of any one even less observant of natural history than Nether Lochaber. Lying on its side was the mole, already half-hidden by the swiftly growing aftermath. Touching it with the corner of our rake, and moving it slightly, we got a glimpse of a yellow-banded beetle busy underneath; and