but an "insubstantial pageant," fading into premature age, sickness, and poverty!

The poor unknown wanderer we have alluded to was not destined to gratify the people of Lairg by "fretting his hour" upon their stage. He set out to rouse the country and collect an audience, taking with him his son, to bear him company over the mountains. Neither of them returned -the play was, of course, postponed-and day passed after day, without bringing any tidings of the actor or his boy. The wife and daughter departed, and the circumstance was forgotten, when, nine months afterwards, in August 1838, on a solitary part of the farm of Shiness, the bodies of a man and boy were discovered in a state of great decomposition. The occurrence was noised abroad, and the mouldering remains were identified by the people of Lairg as those of the unfortunate stroller and his son. It has been conjectured that they had lost their way among the hills, and were overtaken by a storm, which they had not strength to resist. They had apparently sunk down on the ground exhausted, and the boy's head was supported by his father, who had thrown over it a part of his coat, as a protection from the night or the storm. The man's name and history are unknown-and thus perished the lone outcast of the drama, with his unfortunate son, in a land of strangers, amidst the wildest scenes of nature, and under circumstances as touching as any which ever drew tears on the stage. What a contrast to the gay and crowded theatres in which the poor player had probably performed in his better days! After all his bustling toils and dreams of ambition, to be thus cut off-his boy dying, or dead, within his arms, under the inclement skies, and his wife and daughter vainly expecting their return!

"The angel of death in the desert had found him,
And stretched him unseen by the side of the hill."

GOATS.

THE goat does not, in Great Britain, hold that rank among quadrupeds that its many good qualities seem fairly to entitle it to. Like the ass, it is persecuted and proscribed. Even the sacred writers seem to have a grudge at the mountain wanderer, and seldom omit placing it in the most un. favourable light. The scape-goat of the Old Testament, and the contrast drawn in the New, between the sheep and the goats, as symbolical of the position of the righteous and the wicked at the day of judgment, have influenced many a shepherd's mind; and few persons in the country parishes of Scotland see a flock of sheep and goats together without being reminded of the Scripture simile. The left-hand station has consequently been assigned to the goats by all but painters, who love to place their venerable figures in the front of Alpine scenery." * Yet the animal is really valuable: in

*❝In looking upwards to a precipice, if one of our fellow-creatures, or even one of the lower animals, should be placed on the brink, the principle of sympathy transports us instantly, in imagination, to the critical spot, exciting in us some degree of the same feelings which we should there have experienced. 'On the cliffs above,' says Gray, in the journal of one of his tours, hung a few goats; one of them danced, and scratched an ear with its hind foot, in a place where I would not have stood stock-still for all beneath the moon.' It is by such unexpected incidents as this, that the attention is forcibly roused to the secret workings of thought; but something of the same kind takes place on almost every occasion when altitude produces the emotion of sublimity. In general, whoever examines the play of his imagination, while bis eye is employed, either in looking up to a lofty eminence, or in looking down from it, will find it continually shifting the direction of its movements; glancing,' as the poet expresses it, 'from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.'"-Dugald Stewart.

F F

milking qualities it far surpasses even the best Ayrshire cow; and it will feed on herbage inaccessible and unpalatable to almost every other herbivorous animal. Cobbett-a high authority on these matters-says that goats will make a hearty meal on paper, white and brown, written or unwritten; and the statement is correct. Retired lawyers and merchants, who have betaken themselves to the delightful occupation of pastoral farming, will have a large supply of goats' keep in their old law papers, day-books, and ledgers. A set of hungry goats will come more readily to a decision on their "written pleadings" than the sheriff or Lord Ordinary, and will settle all "book-debts" more quickly than the parties concerned. The advantage of a flock of goats to the publishers of unsuccessful works-those unfortunate illstarred books, which, as Pope says,

"Line trunks, clothe spice, or, fluttering in a row,
Befringe the rails of Bedlam or Soho"-

is too obvious to be overlooked. Though unable to feed or clothe their authors, the dullest books will suffice for both to the goats—a metaphysical treatise is as good as a new novel. For ordinary purposes, however, suffice it to say that the goat will eat everything that any other animal will eat, and a great many more things besides. When allowed to roam at will among the cliffs of our mountains, the goat is an exceedingly wild animal-scarcely approachable by man; but when caught at a distance from these strongholds, and surrounded cleverly by a sufficient number of shepherds' dogs, it yields at once to circumstances, and, by familiar treatment, quickly becomes one of the most domestic of animals. A friend of ours once saw a party of fifteen or sixteen goats secured in this way; and although, at first, they screamed like human beings frantic, they were, before the

end of the week, eating from the hand, perfectly tame and reconciled. On high sheep farms milk goats are often very serviceable in severe seasons, in feeding the young lambs. They have their kids about a month before the lambing season, and are easily pressed into this extra nursing duty. Need we say anything of the delicate flesh of the kid? or the delicious flavour of the venison of a four-years-old wether goat? or the fine stomachic qualities of goat cheese? or the admirable mattresses made from its hair? positive good qualities known to all.

These are

WORDSWORTH says―

BIRDS' NESTS.

"Among the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest, with nice care,
Is none that with the little wren's
In snugness may compare."

We saw a wren's nest a few days since in rather a singular situation. In a garden on the banks of the Ness is a small shed wherein the gardener's tools are kept, and in this hangs a piece of net. In a corner of the net, very carefully built, and as carefully concealed, a wren has constructed its nest. The wonder at first was, how the bird had found its way into the place, as the door is seldom open; but a closer inspection disclosed a small opening between the boards—scarcely large enough to admit one's finger-into which the wren must have forced itself, and conveyed the materials of its dwelling.

The familiar robin seems at times to be undeterred by noise. One is at present located in a building in the course of erection for an infant school, and seems equally heedless

of the workmen, and unmolested by their din. Another has built its nest in a saw-pit, where it chirps in concert with the noisy operations below.

One morning in spring a gentleman of Inverness, on taking down a small watering-pan that had hung for some time in his garden, found that it was occupied by a bird—a linnet— which had snugly ensconced itself within the cavity, and graced it besides with five fine eggs. The leaves that had fallen during the autumn helped to make a nest, and the watering-pan was so situated as effectually to exclude the rain. Our friend, though a lawyer, is much too humane and kind-hearted to have served a process of ejectment on the little intruder and its embryo progeny; he carefully replaced the whole, trusting to be amply repaid, as the spring advanced, by the melody of their strains.

At the house of Kinmylies, a swallow has built its nest in the porch at the door, and reared a numerous offspring in its small but comfortable domicile. As the nestlings arrived at maturity their motions were eagerly watched by the family cat, who looked with "envious leer malign" on the sportive young eavesdroppers. One morning the cat clambered up to the nest, but the swallows screamed, flapped their wings, and drove off the intruder. Attempt after attempt was made in the same way by the cat, but always without success. The old birds kept the feline tyrant at bay with no other weapon but their wings, aided by the occasional assistance of a brother swallow; for it is a curious fact that, when hard pressed by the enemy, one of the swallows usually retires for a moment, and gives the signal to her feathered brethren bivouacked on the barns and housetop. The fluttering and screaming of the birds, and the cries of the cat make a concert that usually summonses the family to witness the scene.