Country Diary Fon months past the wild bagels of Scotland have been "lurking In their lairs—such appropriate. places to lurk don't you think?—while agile Scots have been skipping lightly from rock to rock, hoping to entice them out with quaint bleating sounds drawn from a leather bag with long gis. There are many ways in which {the quaint little creature cannot be taken. Thus for example to shoot a sitting haggis will enrage a Scotsman to the depth of his proud soul 'To trap one bespeaks the low instinct OF the. Southron, and if you only realized how low the Hiclan' thiel thinks the Sassenach, you would understand that in the' eyes of Scot-Jand he has to stand ona step ladder to reach as high asa snake's belly.
The haggis should be enticed from the lair, a8 aforesaid, with sweet music, and when once its confidence gained, it should be quickly seized and strangled, lest it makes a noise and seares away the others of its tribe. After that it should be conveyed home in stale and solemnly boiled. The story that the head of the household generally gets boiled at the same time is not entirely correct, That he appears to suffer from a strange pathological condltion. sometimes attended by illusory symptoms, is generally attributed the quantities of spirituous nourishment he is reported to absorb while the esoteric mysteries are being per~ formed in the kitchen copper, but there are authorities who claim that hho Is not in fact boiled, but is suffering intense emotion' which ace counts for the strangeness of his behaviour. this connection it must realized that the Scots are an emotional race. Far from the banks and braes of which they are continually singing, when they are not enticing Sweet sounds—what they call sweet, from a skilfully pressed sheepskin bag. they will falke for hours about the superior beauties of Scotland, and when it comes to the flora and fauna of that land, and especially: the haggis, strong' Scots have been known to turn aside and slyly wipe away the tear which listens 30 strangely upon their usually imperturbable countenances. Men with faces as rugged as their own ironclad hills, will discourse "in quaint lage upon the habits of the hai Tnnumerable books have been life story. As for wonderful tome com piled by the Rev. Alex MacWhirrrterra, who has definitely settled for all time that the haggis does not swallow its young, and in fact makes the best "of good mothers. "Then there is the other exceptionally authoritative book by A. McHinery on "Haggis breeding for profi." in which he proves. that these quaint creatures when captured young and kept in proper surroundings "have been known lo thrive and" prosper to such an extent that one breeder became 50 rich that he dropped a bawbee one day and did not trouble to bend and pick it up.
But it is with the haggis inthe wild state that we are at the moment nearly concerned, There is no finer sight than Ben Lomond on a meantess wight in the spring.—the close season for these creatures. with flocks of haggis going on and on and on and up and up and up, to quote Mr. Ramsay MeDonald, whose success in life is attributable to the amount of haggis included in his carly diet which enabled him later years to stand almost any-On a quiet, silent night in such 'a romantic place, nothing can be heard but the cheeping of the young hogs calling (0 its mother, the maturer haggis intimating lore mellifuous tones that. "Spring has come," and the el buck haggis roaring defiance to all comers.
-amid all this romance that the haggis comes 10 maturity about the beginning of October. Grouse, phear sats, and partridges have been Killed ff to give the haytgis a few last days of glorious isolation, and. then the blow falls.
Children are hustled to bed in the gloaming, where the Scots, on the finest of authorities, may do most of their roaming. Pibrochs are furbished up, laments which have been in the family for years ore freshly sharpened, and, with clay~ mores firmly fastened on, folk go out in search of the bagas. The claymores are not really necessury, but since a haggis once turned on Robert the Bruce. and bit him severely, the Scot takes no more nees. Chances are about the only thing a Scot will never take.
And then the haggis "is stalked from rock to rock in the manner which we have already described.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.