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AN INTELLIGENT COD.

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miniature-which is his usual howf, and advancing straight to the front of the tank, put his nose to the glass, wagging his tail, and staring at us with an expression of countenance so queer and comical, that it made us laugh outright. "Well, Nether Lochaber, my boy," he seemed inclined to say, "how are you This is all very fine, but on the word of a cod, believe me that I'd far rather be cruising about the shores and shallows of Loch Linnhe, down yonder in your own neighbourhood, than be confined here from year's end to year's end, to be stared at by a lot of people who may pretend some interest in me from a purely scientific point of view, but who, between ourselves, if the truth were known, never see me but they straightway think of how I should be boiled and served with sauce. Only the other day, for instance, a lady visitor from Glasgow asked one of the attendants what he thought might be my weight, and if he was of opinion that a cod out of an aquarium tank would be quite as good eating as one direct from the sea? When I hear talk of that kind, it hurts my feelings, I can tell you." All this, and a great deal more, we fancied the cod would have said if he could; and as we tapped the glass at his nose and bade him a friendly good-bye, we almost persuaded ourselves that he responded with a knowing wink, as with a single sweep of his tail he put about and joined the conger in a brisk constitutional round and athwart the tank-a tank so crystal clear, and clean and comfortable, as indeed are all the tanks, that the inmates, abundantly and regularly fed, ought to be happy enough, were it not that, like Sterne's starling, they probably find the great drawback on their happiness in the fact that after all they are prisoners, that they can't get out. We were much delighted with the seal-house and its lively and intelligent occupants. The shape of a seal's head is sufficient to convince the most careless observer that it must contain a great deal of brains; while its full and lively eye bespeaks a high and

active order of intelligence. Those at present in the Rothesay Aquarium, three in number, are most interesting animals, and almost as tame as lapdogs. It so happened that we entered their house at a time when they were exceedingly active and lively, for they were well aware that a large basket, which had just been carried to the side of their tank, contained fresh fish of some kind or other for their dinner; and they raced and leaped about in eager expectation of the treat, for they were evidently hungryalways a good sign of an aquarium inmate. The fish consisted of small flounders; and the agility and graceful ease of the motions of these seals, as they dived and dashed after a fish, which, while they were begging dog-like before us at one end of the tank, we suddenly tossed to the other end, was so admirable that we continued a long time to play at a sort of pitch-and-toss game that was quite as agreeable to them as it could possibly be interesting to us. We only ceased our part of the performance when we thought that for the time they must have had enough, the seal being probably as liable to indigestion as the result of a surfeit as is any other animal. When, however, they found that they had nothing more to expect from us, they showed their intelligence and nous by at once commencing to climb out of their tank, at the very spot, too, where it was easiest of accomplishment, on the side on which they knew the fish-basket was placed. What could they now be after? was the question we asked ourselves. One after another they got out and waddled along the pavement, awkwardly indeed, but as quickly as they could, past us, keeping their big and beautiful eyes steadily fixed on ours, till they reached the basket, and in a moment each had seized a fish, with which he instantly tumbled heels-over-head into the tank again at the point nearest him, evidently afraid that we might try and intercept him, and deprive him of a bonne bouche, which all of them seemed perfectly well somehow to understand they had no right to take in such

FEEDING-TIME.

393 reiving fashion. We noticed that when we threw a fish into the tank, and one of them got hold of it, the other two endeavoured to snatch it from him, and for the moment there was a wild tumult and tumble, in which the water was lashed into foam. In this, however, as far as we could judge, there was no manifestation of anything like anger, or the slightest attempt to hurt or injure each other. It was more like the rough and tumble play of children after a ball, or something of that sort, which all may strongly desire to possess, but which only one can have for the moment.

CHAPTER LXI.

Overland from Balluchulish to Oban on a 'Pet Day' in February-Story of Clach RuricCastle Stalker: an Old Stronghold of the Stewarts of Appin-James IV.-Charles II.— Magpies-Dun-Mac-Uisneachan.

WITH all their tendency, in their every reference to the past, to become laudatores temporis acti, the sturdy upholders of the superiority of all that was, in comparison with anything and everything that is, our weather-wise octogenarian friends here are all agreed that so summer-like a February [1878] month they never knew before. It is true that in making this admission they shake their heads sapiently, and hint that no good can come of such an unnatural commingling of the times and seasons. It will be well, they add, if before cuckoo day (mun d'thig latha na cuaig) we haven't to pay for it all in the shape of storm and cold at a time when these are as unseasonable and out of place as is summer calm and summer sunshine now. It was amusing to see these honest old croakers selecting the coziest nooks air chùl gaoithe's air aodain gréine, as the Fingalian tale has it, that is, at the back of the wind and in the face of the sun-and thoroughly enjoying the calm and sunshine at the very moment that they would impress upon us the unnaturalness and unseasonableness of it all. The first fortnight of February was, indeed, wonderfully fine; from the beginning of the month up to the evening of St. Valentine's Day, more like the close of April or early May than anything usually looked for while the sun is still in Aquarius. Driving overland to Oban on the 11th, and, by the ferries of Ballachulish, Shian, and Connel, a very beautiful drive it is, hardly to be equalled elsewhere even in

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STORY OF CLACH RURIC.

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the West Highlands; the day was so bright, and calm, and clear, that while mavis and merle, and hedge-accenter and chaffinch greeted us from copse and hedgerow with their rich and mellow song, the driver, sitting beside us, couldn't help observing as we passed by Appin House, "Na 'n robh chuag again a nis, bha 'n samhradh fhein ann!" "If we had but the cuckoo now, it would

be summer its very self!" On the beach, a little above high-water mark, just under Appin House, and within an easy stone's cast of the public road, there is an immense spherical boulder of granite, to which there is attached a curious old story, which invests with additional interest an object deserving enough of attention for its own sake-for the sake, that is, of its huge size and almost perfect spherical form, this latter peculiarity, in the huge solid mass, making it the most remarkable thing of the kind on the mainland, at least of the West Highlands. The story of the Appin House boulder, or Clach Ruric as it is called, is, dropping minor and unessential details, to the following effect:-Long, long ago a Prince of Lochlin or Scandinavia, with a formidable fleet of war galleys, made a descent upon the Hebrides, killing and plundering everywhere with a ruthlessness known only, even in those days of rude lawlessness, to the Vikings of the north. Having thoroughly devastated the islands, Ruric-for such was the Prince's name— steered for the mainland of Morven, and took up his residence in the castle of Mearnaig, in Glensanda. In this stronghold, the ruins of which still exist, he resolved to pass the winter, with the intention of over-running and plundering the adjoining districts in the spring, and afterwards sailing homewards in the calm of summer seas, for his galleys were so deeply laden with booty that he feared to encounter the turbulence of the North Sea at any other season. In the early spring the cruel Northman was betimes astir, killing and plundering with but little opposition throughout the districts of Kingerloch, Sunart, and Ardgour, to the head of

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