greatly to his annoyance you may believe, and not a little to the surprise and consternation of his amiable bedfellow. Then, and for weeks afterwards, all search for the missing nightcap was but so much fruitless labour; nothing could be seen or heard of it, and it was finally agreed on all hands that it must have been stolen by some person whose honesty became weak as water in view of the Kilmarnock's rare magenta colour and gay pendulous tassel. And the nightcap in very truth was stolen, though the thief was probably actuated less by the brilliancy of its colours than the cozy feel of its soft and silken texture. Some time in mid-autumn the mystery was cleared up in this wise. The nightcap owner was one day engaged in redding up his barn preparatory to the ingathering of his crops, when a large rat bolted from between his feet, and, scuttling across the floor, disappeared, rat fashion, in a hole in the divot wall. A spade was instantly got, and the hole dug about until its innermost recess was reached, in which was found a gigantic dam rat with a litter of a dozen or more young ones. These were all of them of course straightway despatched, and the cozy nest of moss, dried grass, and nibbled straw scattered about, when lo! as its foundation appeared the long missing bonnet de nuit, the incomparable Kilmarnock, without a rent or tear, and its colours as bright almost, and its tassel bobbing as coquettishly as when first displayed on the points of the shopman's distended fingers over the counter in the Cowcaddens. There was great rejoicing over the reappearance of the nightcap, which is now again prized as highly and watched over as carefully as if it were the nightcap of Fortunatus; and the owner, a wag and humorist in a quiet way, as are most of our old Highlanders, has composed a song on the subject (Oran do m' Churrachd-oidhche), which, after some coaxing, we got him to repeat to us some days ago. It pleased us immensely, and made us laugh until our sides were sore. For the benefit of our readers we may dash off a translation of it some evening or other when we are "i' the vein." Going to call at Ardgour House one day last week, and taking a short cut through the woods, we came across the keeper just as he had shot a roebuck, the largest we think we ever saw, and with the finest head. The horns were something extraordinary, both as to size and shape, so much so, indeed, that although we have in our day met with many fine ones, we never saw anything for a moment to be compared with these. We have, for instance, a roebuck's head of our own, kindly given us some years ago by Lochiel, the horns on which are allowed to be uncommonly good ones; but we find that they are nearly two inches shorter in the beam, and less by nearly a whole inch in circumference of root of antler at its junction with the skull than those of the specimen shot in Ardgour on Tuesday. CHAPTER XVI.