We haven't as yet had many opportunities of making inquiry into the matter, but from all we can gather from some old women in our neighbourhood, we believe empty egg-shells are, or perhaps we should say were, frequently treated after the fashion stated, and for the reason assigned. Some of our readers in the north-west Highlands and Hebrides may perhaps know something more about a very odd and curious superstition to be met with in the latter half of the nineteenth century. For obvious reasons, it is a superstition more likely to be prevalent among islanders and dwellers by the sea-shore than in the more inland parts of the country.

The following fragment of a curious old poem we picked up about ten days ago from the recitation of Alexander Maclachlan, shepherd, Dalness. It is unfortunately but a fragment, as we have said, but we give it here in the hope that some of our friends of the Gaelic Society, or of our many readers throughout the Hebrides, may be able to supply more or less of the remainder. Maclachlan heard the entire poem from a Glenetive forester, a very old man, some years ago, but this man is now unfortunately dead, and the reciter could not direct us to any one likely to be able to repeat the poem at length. Perhaps our friend Mr. J. F. Campbell of Islay, so indefatigable and marvellously successful in his search after Celtic song and story, "all of the olden time," may have met with it in a more or less complete form; if so, he would very much oblige us all in the north by giving us a version of it and its history, as far as he knows it. We may state that it does not appear in Leabhar-na-Feinne, which we have searched for it, though unquestionably a production of considerable antiquity. Maclachlan told us that the old forester, in reciting it, called it Conaltradh nan Ian, or The Parliament of Birds. The following were evidently the opening lines of the poem, and likeliest to be remembered by one who only heard it repeated once or twice :

THE BIRD PARLIAMENT.

CONALTRADH NAN IAN-(Fragment).
"Nuair 'bha Gaelig aig na h'eoin,

'Sa 'thuigeadh iad glòir nan dàn,
Bu tric an comhradh anns a choill

Air iomad pong, ma's fhior na Bàird.
Thainig piaid luath na gleadhraich,

'S shuidh i air grod mheur còsach fearna,
Ma choinneamh cò'chaig a ghuib chruinn,
'Sa caog-shuil dhonn na ceann mar àirnaig.
'N so dh'éirich a phiaid gu grad,
'S thubhairt i's i's tailceadh a bonn,
'An tusa sin a'd mheall air stop

Nuair a bhi's do cheod-cheann trom?
Am bi do theanga 'ghnath fo ghlais
'S tu gun luaidh air reach na ùi,
'S tu cho duinte ri cloich bhric
'Bhi's air meall a chnaip gun bhri.'

"Bu treis dhaibh mar so a còmhstri,
Gearradh, 'bearradh glòir a cheile,
Ach gus an d'leum a nois an glas-eun;
'S rinn esan gach cùis a réiteach,

'S crog a phiaid air a ceann

'S dh-fhag e i gu fuar, fann,
'N sin bh'éirich firèun nan gléus
A shinbhlas an spèur ga luath."

[Cætera desunt.]

277

This curious poem seems to have been throughout of a dramatic form. Maclachlan says that, as he heard it repeated, almost all our better known wild-birds were introduced, and had appropriate speeches and parts assigned to them. He particularly referred to a very funny speech by the wren, who finally quarrels with the wagtail, by whom he had been insulted, and gives him a good licking. The end of it all is that the eagle is unanimously elected king of birds, with the glas-eun or falcon-kite as his lieutenant. The throstle cock is elected bard of birds, and the dipper admiral and commander-in-chief of the wild-bird fleet. Any one recovering the whole poem would be conferring no small boon on Gaelic literature.

CHAPTER XLV.

Albert," a famous Labrador Dog-As a Water-Dog-His intelligence-Takes to Sheepstealing-Death!

In a recent number of Land and Water, Mr. Frank Buckland, in writing about the Ophiophagus elaps, a serpent-eating serpent lately introduced into the Zoological Gardens, London, with all the honours due to a visitor so choice and curious in its diet, remarks that "the saying that 'Dog will not eat dog' is proverbial amongst us." North of the Tweed, neither in Gaelic nor in guid braid Scotch, is any such proverb known. The nearest approach to it that we can think of at this moment [April 1875] is the saying that "Hawks winna pick oot hawks' een," and this is applied in a sense very different from that suggested by Mr. Buckland's proverb, if such a proverb exists. At all events the saying that dog will not eat dog is not true; dog will eat dog, ravenously and greedily enough, when he is hungry and gets the chance. Notwithstanding his domestication and long acquaintance with the usages of civilised life, the dog is, under certain circumstances, as thorough a cannibal and savage as ever was Fiji islander in the days when that worthy Polynesian would give the best finger of his right hand for a prime haunch of full-fed and fat "missionary." Out of many instances that had come under our own observation of cannibalism in dogs, take the following, all the circumstances connected with which, although it is somewhat of an old story now, are for many reasons as fresh in our recollection as if they had occurred but yesterday. When we came to Lochaber, upwards of

twenty years ago (Eheu! fugaces labuntur anni), we had a large Labrador dog, a present, when a three-months-old pup, from one of the best and kindliest men we have ever known, the late Rev. Dr. Macnair, of the Abbey Church, Paisley. He grew to be a magnificent animal, the largest and most powerful dog, perhaps, ever seen in the Highlands, and as sagacious and good-tempered as he was big and bold and strong. The late Mr. Campbell of Monzie, an excellent judge of dogs, used to say that he was the finest dog he ever saw, and made it a point every year to call once or twice during the shooting season purposely to have "a friendly talk," as he termed it, with "Albert," for such was our canny Goliath's name. As a water-dog, he was simply perfect, as amphibious almost as a seal. Any stone that you took in your hand and threw into twelve, fifteen, or even twenty feet of water, he instantly dashed after, and took from the bottom, and laid at your feet, seldom making a mistake, though how he was able to select from a stony bottom the very stone that had been handled and thrown in by you was then, and is still, a puzzle to us: not by scent, one would think, for all traces of contact with the hand must surely have been lost in passing through such a depth of salt water. He probably was able to recognise the proper stone partly from its colour and shape, and from its being in a less saturated state, and less in contact with the bottom than were those that always lay there. On one occasion we had left our boat on the beach, neglecting to tie the painter, as we intended returning immediately. Something came in the way, however, that occupied us longer than we expected, and on returning to the shore, our boat was off and away, drifting before a land breeze that had already carried it quite a quarter of a mile from the beach. There was no other boat at hand in which to overtake the runaway, and to go round by the ferry, to meet it on the opposite side of the loch, was a longer walk than one cared about just then, and the boat, besides, was

likely to be considerably damaged if it reached the rocks on the other side, as the chances were it would, before we could arrive. While thus in a state of anxiety and indecision, our eye fell upon "Albert," then our constant companion, afloat and ashore. "Albert, old fellow," we remarked, "the boat, you see, is adrift; what's to be done?" With a grand, deep bass bark in response, he dashed into the water, and ere we could well understand it all, he was a hundred yards away, swimming hastily and rapidly in the direction of the truant yawl. We could only sit down on a rock to watch and wait the upshot of the adventure. Soon overtaking the runaway boat, "Albert " swam once or twice round it, and then observing that the painter was dragging in the water over the bow, he seized the rope in his mouth, and strongly and steadily towed the boat towards us, against a stiff breeze and a considerable ripple of a sea, until he reached the beach, and dropped the painter on the shingle at our feet, and with a jolly, self-approving bark, in response to our words of hearty welcome, that made the mountain echoes ring again, he shook a perfect shower-bath of brine from his shaggy coat, and scampered away along the sands to dry himself. He was manifestly proud, as he well ought to be, of an exploit so timeously and sagaciously performed, and so, be sure, were we. "Albert's" readiness to take to the water was, on one occasion at least, attended by rather awkward circumstances. One beautiful summer afternoon, a young Oxford friend and ourselves were in the same boat, with "Albert," as usual, for a companion. It was too calm for sailing, and we were too lazy to row, so we allowed the boat to drift about at "its own sweet will," while we lounged on the thwarts and read the papers, of special interest then on account of the Crimean war. We were half a mile from land, and our friend by-and-by suggested that a swim in the invitingly cool, clear sea would be a good thing before returning home to dinner. As he was an excellent swimmer, with whom, for a small wager, we had