Though the game has never been universal in Scotland, it has long been practised in almost every county south of the Forth and the Clyde. The shires of Ayr, Renfrew, Lanark and Dumfries are remarkable for their attachment to Curling. It is played in Perthshire, the Countess of Mansfield, being now patroness of the Scone and Perth Club; but we are not aware of its having been, until lately, practised farther north. In Aberdeen--that city of northern lights--it is unknown. The Editor of the Aberdeen Herald, who is a native of a Curling district, laments in his paper of 13th January, 1838--that all was then bound up in the icy stillness of the season, and that in a place abounding with the material for making admirable curling stones, and with arms strong enough to wield them, "No friendly combatants contested the field." The game was played near Inverness, in 1838, when Loch-na-Sanais (or the whispering lake), with the picturesque hills of Tomnahurich and Torvain, echoed, for the first time, to the booming of the stones over the ice. Curling has long been held in high estimation in Edinburgh. About the beginning of last century "the magistrates marched in a body to the North Loch, to spend the day in Curling. In going and returning they were preceded by a band of music, playing appropriate airs." It was the custom in Paisley, not many years ago, to send round the town drummer, after two or three nights' hard frost, to proclaim to the inhabitants where the Curlers should meet in the morning; and in the morning, should the frost continue, hundreds might be seen--manufacturers, bailies, weavers, and clergymen,--resorting promiscuously to the rendezvous; for on the ice all are on a _level_--all ordinary distinctions in society are, for the time, forgotten in the love of the game, and the noble and the learned are there willing to be directed by the most skilful player, though this should happen to be the humblest of their neighbors. In some of the agricultural districts of Scotland, the extent of Curling Clubs is regulated by the legal divisions of the country, being again sub-divided among themselves into rinks, who always play together under their respective skips;--the organization resembling in many respects that of the Militia of Canada--and on the occasion of a contest with another club, every man who, if in this country should be liable to serve as a soldier, turns out willingly for the honour of his _corps_. There, however, age procures no exemption from service. In the words of Grahame, "When rival parishes and shrievedoms keep, On upland loch, the long expected tryst, To play their yearly bonspiel, AGED MEN, Smit with the eagerness of youth, ARE THERE, While love of conquest lights their beamless eyes, New nerves their arms and makes them young once more."