"How cheap the pleasures of the simple mind! "Unknown to joys that fashion calls refin'd: "What fine, what slender, and unconscious ties, "To hold the kind ingenuous heart, suffice. "The wide, wild haunts, where nature lonely reigns, "Unwilling they forsake, to seek the plains; "Yet when they see the dear familiar spot, "Where each descries his lov'd, his native cot, "Well pleas'd they hail the Genius of the plain, "And joy to meet their household-gods again : "Though penury and ceaseless toil await, They resolutely brave the storms of fate,

"And see fair Hope's eternal lamp display "The gloomy path that leads to endless day." Mrs GRANT's Poems, p. 50.

5

Where lonely bothans stud the lively green.-P. 30. THE verdant spots interspersed among the hills, were generally chosen for erecting the huts booths, or bothans on. And such a narrow green plat is called airidh, summersheal, or shieling.

6

Is seen the crested cappercailzie rare.-P. 32.

·THE capul-coille (cappercailzie) or cock of the wood, a species of grouse, was once found in abundance among the Grampians, but has entirely disappeared within these forty years. The last capul-coille seen in these parts, was that in a 'pine forest part of the property of Chisholme of that ilk, on the Spey, Inverness-shire, the two legs of which were given to our late professor (for alas! he is

no more! having died a few days since) of natural history Dr Walker, in whose collection they will be found. This bird, it is believed, was that mentioned by Mr Pennant in his British Zoology, (I. 199.) and also by Mr Daniel (Part II. ii. 137.) in his Rural Sports. "From Moscow "and Petersburgh," says this reverend Author, "they "(the wood-grouse or cappercailzie) are sent during the "cold season as presents to London, their flesh being "esteemed a delicacy at our sumptuous tables; and for "the most part they arrive in good condition." They are nearly the size and weight of a middling turkey, and frequently weigh from twelve to sixteen pounds. They have now, I am told, become extinct in Ireland, and also in Wales. A clergyman of Edinburgh, I am informed, who spent some years in Scandinavia, is well acquainted with this species of game, and shot many during his residence in the north of Europe. I observe mention made of the cock of the wood, or capercailzie, in a small tract, entitled, "A Description of the County of Angus, trans"lated from the orginal Latin of Robert Edward, mini"ster of Murroes," (Dundee, printed 1793) drawn up in the year 1678, which proves clearly the great abun dance of this bird at that time in those parts of the Grampians belonging to the county of Angus. The male and the female, it should seem, (like the fashionables of the present day), live separately, till early in spring, the male, “flushed with the joys of conjugal love, the wood"cock, (capul-coille) from the spreading tree, takes his airy flight to the less masculine cover of the heathy " plain; with watchful looks he rears his waving crest "above the slender branches of the heath; his steps are

66

"in search of the coy charmer of his breast, whose half"inviting distant notes he eagerly pursues with joyful "flight; with majestic grace he shakes the varying co"lour of his swelling pride, and solicits the friendly glance "of the female eye, while the spreading wing invites her "to the warm embrace." Fly not the arms of thy "lover," continues the poet, " daughter of the heath; "this is the nuptial season of the feathered tribe: every "tender pair taste the pleasures of love in the surround

bills. The joys of nature, without interruption, be thy 66 portion, sprightly daughter of the nimble eye! thy 66 grateful lover will remain faithful to the charmer of his "breast; he will yet provide thee food, and cheer thy "heart with melodious notes from the distant tree, "when thou spreadest thy motherly wings o'er the ten"ants of the nest; and, with the animating kindness of "thy speckled bosom, warm into existence a feeble crew, "the feathered sons of the shell." (Clerk's Translation of the Caledonian Bards, Vol. I. p. p. 189, 190.)

6 REPEATED by mistake,

7

They sleepless languish, pent in narrow space.-P. 35.

8

Implore assistance, but implore too late.-P. 36.

THESE notes allude to the miseries which, for want of room and medical assistance, many of the emigrants ex

*With respect to the “melodious notes" of the cock of the wood, however, the naturalist is greatly at variance with the poet: he, (the capercailzie) places himself on an eminence, or perches on a tree, and calls the female with " a noise not unlike that of a scythe." Daniel's Rural Sports, Vol. II. p. 137.

perienced in their passage to America, proofs for which were first laid before the Highland Society of Scotland, and afterwards communicated to ministry, immediately prior to the bill which was passed (24th June 1803) for restricting emigration to America from Great Britain and Ireland.

9

To sink midst thousands in eternal rest.-P 36.

THE history of the plague holds out an awful lesson of the unavailing efforts of human skill, to counteract its terrible effects in depopulating cities, districts, and considerable sections of the habitable globe: witness the description of pestilence given by various writers; particularly that mentioned in ancient history, which first appeared in the reign of JUSTITIAN, and raged with unparallelled malignity for fifty years. The great plague which had nearly cut off the greater number of the citizens of London, in the year 1665, during which, in one fortnight, no less than one thousand one hundred and fourteen dead bodies, were thrown into one pit, dug on purpose, of 40 feet in length, by 16 in breadth, and 20 in depth, in the charter-house. And such was the dreadful state of distraction, that seve→ ral instances are recorded of mothers, in the frenzy of the moment, rushing forth with their infants in their arms to the brink of the common grave, and in the agonies of despair, dropping the darling of their breast, and plunging headlong after it alive into the mass of putrefaction among their dead friends and kindred. (vide Journal of the Plague in the year 1665.) The dreadful calamity which made appearance at Philadelphia in summer 1793, and af

its

terwards in different parts of America, and in several of the West India islands, called, by way of distinction, the yellow-fever, (the worst species of ship or jail fever) is fresh in every one's memory. And what our fleets and armies have suffered by this terrible scourge of the human race, need not here be repeated.

10

Retrace their steps, and seek their loathsome jail.-P. 37, THIS is a well known fact, the particulars respecting which were laid before Government.

11

Will swarm with peaceful and laborious men-P. 38. It seems one of those political first principles, which. all acknowledge as incontrovertible, that population is uniformly great, in proportion as the means of subsistence increase. Hence the due culture of the soil yielding the necessary supplies for the immediate wants of nature, the human species multiplies; and, in like manner, domestic animals reared by the earth's produce, increase in number and improve in quality; some of which furnishing materials for raiment, and a more generous kind of food, and others assisting in the more laborious parts of rural economy, prove of the utmost importance in the progress of agricultural improvement, population, and civil refine

ment.

But at any time, should a community become so numerous as to cause a considerable diminution of the ordinary means of subsistence in those districts to which they belong; then, in that case, it may be deemed necessary to remove to other unoccupied spots susceptible of