there occur in the old Fingalian ballads, and tales of the Féinne, about the antiquity of which there has never been dispute; numberless local references which seem in a very remarkable manner to point to this spot as the principal stronghold in Scotland (for they were of Ireland also) of the Fingalians at one period, and that the most important, perhaps, in their history. Within a short distance of Dun-Mac-Uisneachain, and commanding it, is a steep, rocky eminence of considerable height, called Dunvallary or Dunvallanry, the etymology of which may be Dùn-bhail-n-righ, the Fortified Place of the King's Town; or Dùn-bhail' n 'fhrith, the Fort of the Town on the verge of the Hunting Forest. Stretching away towards Connel and Loch Etive is the wide moorland flat of Achnacree, which, with its numerous cairns, Druidical circles, monoliths, and other relics of the olden time, may very well be the ancient "plains of Lora;" Lora itself, frequently mentioned in Ossianic poetry, and meaning Luath shruth, the loud, swift current, par excellence, meeting us face to face, so to speak, in the turbulently impetuous rapids of Connel. CHAPTER LXII. Nest-building-Cunningham's Objection to Burns' Song, "O were my Love yon Lilac fair"— Birds and the Lilac-Tree-Rivalries of Birds-Birds and the Poets-The Nightingale. A FINER February month from first to last was never known in the West Highlands. With an amount of sunshine that April might be glad of, it was mild and open throughout; the sort of weather, in short, that Thomson must have been dreaming about, when he invoked the season of bursting bud and wildflower as "Gentle Spring, ethereal mildness." March [1878], too, has come in, not lion-like, as the meteorological proverb would have it, but "like a lamb," as it is hoped it may continue and end. Everybody is now astir, and "speed the plough" is the order of the day, as well, indeed, it may, for the bud has already opened into leaf, and primroses are plentiful-so plentiful that they may be gathered in handfuls from the hazel copse and woodland glade. As for our wild-bird friends, they are in ecstasies with it all, everywhere in full and fluent song, and making love with an ardour and directness of purpose that rarely fails of its reward. Nest-building, the most important and serious labour of their lives, but a labour of love all the same, is being rapidly proceeded with, the Godtaught architects knowing not only to labour, but how best to labour, frequently resting a space to refresh themselves with song: 66 Song sweetens toil, however rude the sound, “OH, WERE MY LOVE YON LILAC FAIR." 403 And while speaking of birds, this is, perhaps, the proper place to refer to a paragraph that appeared recently :— "THE LILAC TREE AND BIRDS.-Burns has a song, 'Oh, were my love yon lilac fair,' &c. Cunningham has remarked that Burns had made an unhappy selection of a tree for sheltering his little bird; for the feathered songsters are found to avoid the lilac when in flower, owing to its peculiar smell. We confess we are not skilled enough in natural history to attest the accuracy of Cunningham's assertion."-Paterson's Burns, vol. iii. Fully to appreciate Cunningham's objection, it is proper that we quote the song in full; but before doing so, it may be observed that it is founded on an older version, of which the best lines are retained, as is the case with not a few of Burns' finest love-songs. Writing to George Thomson in the summer of 1793, the poet says "Do you know the following beautiful little fragment in Witherspoon's Collection of Scots Songs?- "Oh, gin my love were yon red rose, That grows upon the castle wa.'' "This thought is inexpressibly beautiful, and quite, so far as I know, original. It is too short for a song, else I would forswear you altogether, unless you give it a place. I have often tried to make a stanza to it, but in vain. After balancing myself for a musing five minutes on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, I produced the following. The verses are far inferior to the original, I frankly confess; but if worthy of insertion at all, they might be first in place; as every poet who knows anything of his trade will husband his last thought for a concluding stroke : "Oh, were my love yon lilac fair, Wi' purple blossoms to the spring; And I a bird to shelter there, When wearied on my little wing. How I wad mourn when it was torn When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd. Oh, gin my love were yon red rose, Into her bonnie breast to fa'! Oh! there, beyond expression blest, Cunningham's ornithological objection to the song we believe to be well founded; and it is not a little to his credit, as proving what a close and clear observer of the habits of our song-birds he must have been, that he was the first, so far as we know, to notice how reluctant they are to have anything to do with the lilac while in flower, though at other seasons they perch upon it as freely as upon other shrubs. We are not as sure, however, that our song-birds object to the lilac because of anything disagreeable to them in the perfume of its flowers. Except in the case of some of the Raptores, birds as a rule are neither acute nor delicate of smell, our little song-birds least of all perhaps. We rather think the reason of their dislike to it is to be found, partly at least, if not wholly, in the fact that while it is in flower, its bark, particularly along the smaller branches and twigs, is covered with a slimy secretion or exudation at once viscid and acrid; and if there is one thing more than another which our wild-birds unanimously and with all their hearts detest, it is to have their legs or toes come in contact with anything glutinous or "sticky." Every bird-fancier knows how uncomfortable and generally miserable is a bird just upon being taken off a limed twig; not, observe, because he is a captive— thoughts of that may trouble him afterwards-but immediately and in the first instance because of the bird-lime about his toes. THE LILAC-TREE AND BIRDS. 405 The first thing, therefore, that the bird-catcher does is to cleanse the captive's feet and toes by rubbing them gently between his finger and thumb with fine sand, and afterwards washing them with water; an operation no sooner performed and the bird restored to its cage, than it evinces its satisfaction at being relieved from its state of intolerable discomfort in many little ways that cannot well escape the notice of even the most unobservant. We have known a newly captured chaffinch, placed in a cage directly on being taken off the limed twig, and inadvertently left uncared for till the evening, peck its toes until red flesh appeared, in his attempts to rid them of the bird-lime attached to them. But whether the song-bird's dislike to the lilac when in flower be owing to its perfume or to the disagreeably glutinous exudations of its bark in early summer, or to both combined, it is simply the fact that such an aversion exists; and Allan Cunningham's objection to the lilac in this connection is perfectly well founded. And even if this particular objection had not been well founded, it would have been better, we think, if Burns had selected some one or other of our native flowering shrubs, such as the hawthorn, for example, rather than a comparatively rare exotic like the lilac-rare now, and rarer still a hundred years ago. If those who give any heed at all to these matters will only consider the question, they will be ready, we think, to confess that they never yet knew an instance of a bird's nest in a lilac tree. About our own place here, where the lilac grows to a large size, and flowers splendidly, we ourselves have never known or heard of such a thing. Within the shelter of every other tree and shrub of any consequence about the place, we have known our song-bird friends to build at some time or other never once in the lilac, nor, it may be added, in the fuchsia, which in the warm shelter of this genial spot grows to the dimensions of a tree, all the year round too, without the slightest petting or special protection of any kind, as hardy and |