indeed, thoroughly familiar with bird-music could easily name the principal songsters in the district immediately around us solely from the singing of our talented little polyglot, so faultless is his imitation of the songs as well as "conversational utterances," so to speak, of all such birds as he is in the habit of hearing and seeing from his cage at the frequently open window. You may be sure that "Cowie" is an immense favourite with us all, and that his weight in diamonds would hardly induce us to part with him. CHAPTER XXXII. Potato Culture--Sensibility of the Potato Shaw to Weather changes--The Carline Thistle--Burns--The true Carduus Scotticus--The old Dog-Rhyme. Of no place in existence, perhaps, is the old adage, in its most literal sense, truer than of Lochaber, that "it never rains but it pours" [June 1872]. When we last wrote rain was much needed; no mid-March could be dustier or colder than was our mid-May; rain, rain was the cry on all hands; the birds, as they alighted on the branches or flew overhead, cheeped it querulously; the ducks quacked it energetically; the hens cackled and gaped for it; while the cattle afield lowed for it in a manner the meaning of which there was no mistaking; and at last the change of weather, so universally wished for, came--came first of all in the shape of hail, the dira grando of Horace, the downright pea-size genuine article, which left the hills around as white as if, in questionable taste, they had whitewashed themselves for the season. Hail! fellow, well met, was the natural and appropriate greeting. Then came sleet, a milder form of the same visitation, not very pleasant, perhaps, but we were grateful; then with the wind from the west, soft and pleasant as the breath of a child, came warm, genial summer rain; the tiniest blade of grass felt the benign influence, and, in the beautiful language of oriental imagery, "the mountains and the hills broke forth before us into singing, and the trees and fields clapped their hands." It is now mild and beautiful exceedingly, with just enough of rain from time to time to keep everything fresh and green, and at full stretch of growth, so that crops of all kinds are everywhere making the most satisfactory progress; and although the unseasonable hail and intense cold of ten days ago was very trying to the young potato plants in exposed situations, we are glad to say that no serious damage has resulted, the change from cold to milder weather having been very gradual. The damage in such cases always depends on the suddenness, or the contrary, of the transition from a low to a high temperature; a night of frost, followed by a hot sun next day, being most dangerous to vegetable life, while frost, followed by rain and cloud, and so on gradually to heat and sunshine again, rarely does any more harm than merely to give a slight check to what might otherwise prove an unhealthy rapidity of growth. In the same way it is found that in