Sit here in the stern of the boat, and let her drift out on the glassy waters of the loch. After the long sultry heat of the day it is refreshing to let one’s fingers trail in these cool waters, and to watch the reflection of the hills above darkening in the crystal depths below. Happy just now must be the speckled trout that dwell in the loch’s clear depths; and when the fiery-flowering sun rolls ablaze in the zenith there are few mortals who will not envy the cool green domain of the salmon king. But now that the sunset has died away upon the hills, like “the watch-fires of departing angels,” a breath of air begins mysteriously to stir along the shore, and from the undergrowth about the streamlet that runs close by into the loch, blackbird and water-ousel send forth more liquid pipings. The cuckoos, that all day long have been calling to each other across loch and strath, now with a more restful “chuck! chu-chu, chu, chuck!” are flitting, grey flakes, from coppice to coppice, preparatory to settling for the night The grouse-cocks’ challenge, “kibeck, kibeck, kibeck!” can still be heard from their tourney-ground on the moraine at the moor’s edge; and from the heath above still comes the silvery “whorl-whorl-whorl” of the whaup. These sounds can be heard far off in the stillness of the dusk. But listen to this mighty beating of the waters, and look yonder! From the shadow of the hazels on the loch’s margin comes the royal bird of Juno, pursuing his mate. In his eager haste he has left the water, and with outstretched neck, beating air and loch into foam with his silver wings, he rushes after her. She, with the tantalising coyness of her sex, has also risen from the water, and, streaming across the loch, keeps undiminished the distance between herself and her pursuer. At this, finding his efforts vain, he gives up the chase, subsiding upon the surface with a force which sends the foam-waves curling high about his breast. Disdainfully he turns his back upon the fair, and, without once inclining his proud black beak in her direction, makes steadily for the shore. This, however, does not please the lady. She turns, looks after her inconstant lover, and, meeting with no response, begins slowly to sail in his direction. Suddenly again at this, with snowy pinions erect, neck curved gallantly back, and the calm waters foaming round his breast, he surges after her, ploughing up the loch into shining furrows. Again the coy dame flees, again and again the same amorous manœuvres are gone through, and when night itself falls, the splendid birds will still be dallying over their long-certain courtship. No plebeian affair is the mating of these imperial denizens of the loch. Seldom do mortals witness even this wooing of the swans.