tillness the gurgle of
their native Tweed--and a brace of perch, now nothing but prickle. But
the lochs--the hill, the mountain lochs now in our mind's eye and our
mind's ear,--heaven and earth! the bogs are black with duck, teal, and
widgeon--up there "comes for food or play" to the holla of the winds, a
wedge of wild geese, piercing the marbled heavens with clamour--and lo!
in the very centre of the mediterranean, the Royal Family of the Swans!
Up springs the silver sea-trout in the sunshine--see Sir Humphrey!--a
salmon--a salmon fresh run in love and glory from the sea!

For how many admirable articles are there themes in the above short
paragraph! Duck, teal, and widgeon, wild-geese, swans! And first, duck,
teal, and widgeon. There they are, all collected together, without
regard to party politics, in their very best attire, as thick as the
citizens of Edinburgh, their wives, sweethearts, and children, on the
Calton Hill, on the first day of the King's visit to Scotland. As thick,
but not so steady--for what swimming about in circles--what ducking and
diving is there!--all the while accompanied with a sort of low, thick,
gurgling, not unsweet, nor unmusical quackery, the expression of the
intense joy of feeding, freedom, and play. Oh! Muckle-mou'd Meg! neither
thou nor the "Lang Gun" are of any avail here--for that old drake, who,
together with his shadow, on which he seems to be sitting, is almost as
big as a boat in the water, the outermost landward sentinel, near as he
seems to be in the deception of the clear frosty air, is yet better than
three hundred yards from the shore--and, at safe distance, cocks his eye
at the fowler. There is no boat on the loch, and knowing that, how
tempting in its unapproachable reeds and rushes, and hut-crested
knoll--a hut built perhaps by some fowler, in the olden time--yon
central Isle! But be still as a shadow--for lo! a batch of
Whig-seceders, paddling all by themselves towards that creek--and as
surely as our name is Christopher, in another quarter of an hour they
will consist of killed, wounded, and missing. On our belly--with
unhatted head just peering over the knowe--and Muckle mou'd Meg slowly
and softly stretched out on the rest, so as not to rustle a
windle-strae, we lie motionless as a maukin, till the coterie collects
together for simultaneous dive down to the aquatic plants and insects of
the fast-shallowing bay; and, just as they are upon the turn with their
tails, a