and the gar-fish's snout is greatly elongated, so much so that it bears no small resemblance to a curlew's bill, giving it a wicked, vicious look, that its structure otherwise, however, belies; for it is altogether incapable of hurting anything bigger than the very small fry and marine insects on which it feeds. The prejudice against the gar-fish is no doubt to be accounted for in part by the curious fact that its bones are of a dirty green colour, strange and perhaps disagreeable to an eye accustomed to the ivory-like whiteness of the osseous structure of most other fishes that are brought to table. We have seen specimens of the gar-fish captured by the St. Andrews fishermen that exceeded three feet in length: the fish more immediately referred to only measured nineteen inches. Our friend has since written us a note to say that on being shown to a gentleman, "professing to know something of ichthyology," he declared it to be a specimen of the pipe-fish, which is just about as correct as if a man said that a pelican was a parrot, or a pig was a giraffe. In one particular, at least, we resemble Dr. Samuel Johnson. We have never during our whole lifetime once worn a nightcap. "I had the custom by chance," replied the "Rambler," with a growl at Boswell's inquisitiveness on the subject, "and perhaps no man, sir, shall ever know whether it is best to sleep with or without a nightcap." But if we don't wear a nightcap, some of our neighbours do, and to one of these useful articles of nocturnal toilette befell the following adventure a short time ago. One of our neighbours, a fine old Highlander, still straight as a pine tree, and strong and stalwart withal, though already past the grand climacteric, having had occasion to be in the south in the early summer, bought himself a speck and span new nightcap, which, neatly folded up along with some braws for the gudewife, formed a parcel of which, you may be sure, he was exceedingly careful on the return journey, constantly "keeping his eye on it" all the way from the Broomielaw to Ballachulish Pier, and watching over its safety as anxiously as if it contained the wealth of the Rothschilds in Bank of England notes, or the title-deeds of an earldom. When at last produced at home, and displayed before the admiring gaze of a select few in every imaginable angle of light, it was really a very fine nightcap, a sort of ribbed magenta-coloured "Kilmarnock," with a tassel at top, in which were intermingled all the hues of the rainbow, such a splendid tassel as was never before seen in Lochaber: Cardinal Antonelli might have been proud of it as a pendant to his hat. Having at last been sufficiently admired, the nightcap was duly put to its proper use, and was found to answer its purpose perfectly; but one night, while yet the gay Kilmarnock retained almost all its pristine bloom, lo! it was amissing at bedtime from its usual place of honour on the corner of its owner's pillow,