mals. From this loch the way leads downward and homeward, though we are yet far from the lodge.

What grand bird is that that goes sailing upward in wide spirals, hangs poised in mid-air for an instant, and then swoops down like a thunderbolt on a luckless hare? A falcon? No, it is the great golden eagle! It is still a rare bird, even in the Highlands, though not so rare as it was twenty years ago, for it is now strictly protected in the deer-forests.

As we pass through the low ground on our homeward route, a herd of hinds is seen on a hill-side only three or four hundred yards away, near enough for us to make out the variety of colors in their hides, from dull brown to golden yellow. Presently one hind catches sight of the intruders, then another and another, until the whole herd stands at gaze. Then, as if at a given signal, they turn sharply round, brown heads being replaced by white tails, and trot quickly away, disappearing over the sky-line. If they have been thoroughly startled, they may not halt again till they have reached the "sanctuary." The "sanctuary," it may be explained, is a part of the forest where the deer are never molested by sportsman or forester. The deer soon come to understand its privileges, and take refuge there from danger. The reason why most large forests have sanctuaries is to induce the deer to stay in the forest. There are usually no fences between adjoining deer-forests, and if the deer found that they were being continually stalked in all parts of one forest, while in the neighboring forest there was a tract of ground where they could be in safety, no man making them afraid, they would forsake the inhospitable forest for the one that offered a sanctuary, The regular winter inhabitants of the forest, the forester and his assistants, have something else to do than to enjoy pleasant rambles through the forest on sunny days. A part of the winter is devoted to hind-shooting. Sometimes sportsmen take part in this, but as it yields no trophies like the stag's antlers, and as the winter's snows add greatly to the toils of stalking, the work is

usually left to the foresters. It is work that needs to be done, for since only stags are shot in the " season," if the ranks of the hinds were never thinned, the forest would be overrun by them.

The hind, though despised by sportsmen out after the stag, is no easy prey, for she is more wary than the antlered lord of the forest. The stalkers set out while the winter morning is yet dark, in order to arrive by dawn at the passes by which the hinds are expected to leave the low ground where they have been grazing during the night. If wind and weather favor them, they may dispatch several hinds before sunrise. At other times they may have to spend half a day in toilsome stalking without any result.

What the stalkers like is not, as the uninitiated might think, mild, fresh weather, but frost and deep snow. Mild weather allows the deer to keep to the hills, where they can only be reached after tramping many weary miles through slush and wet snow; whereas when the snow lies deep, and the frost is intense so that no living creature save the ptarmigan can exist long on the open hill, the deer are to be found down at the loch side, or sheltering in low-lying corries.

Sometimes a roe-deer hunt is organized when these dainty little beasts have been doing damage in the plantations. It is of the nature of a deer-drive, with the guns posted at some break in the wood toward which the roes are driven by beaters. The moment when the roedeer break cover and come under fire is very exciting; but often they prefer to turn back and burst through the line of beaters. This is the easier to do, because in young plantations on hill-sides the wood is usually so dense and the ground so rough that the beaters have difficulty in knowing where their comrades are, and in preserving anything like a straight line.

Foxes, too, have to be hunted down. Some time ago a question was asked in the House of Commons about the increase of foxes in the deer-forests, the terms of which suggested that the questioner supposed that foxes were preserved in the Highland forests in order to be hunted by horsemen and hounds,

as in England or the Lowlands of Scotland. The horse has yet to be discovered that could keep up with the hillfox going up the mountain-side, or that would not break his own or his rider's neck descending the rocky screes where the "red dog" usually has his home. In the deer-forest the fox is no beast of chase held in high honor, but is mere vermin to be shot on sight; and if he prove so shy that he has to be sought for in his lurking-places, he is driven. out of his earth by shaggy terriers, and unceremoniously shot as he emerges.

Throughout the foresters' winter work, peril of storm is lying in wait. A snowstorm that has given warning of its approach has discounted most of its terrors. It may, indeed, cut off the dwellers in the forest from all communication with the outer world for some weeks; but that is nearly the worst it can do to them. Well housed and provisioned for the winter, they can easily stand a snow blockade. The wind may roar down the glens, and the snow drift into monstrous wreaths; but they are secure against the fury of the storm.

But if the storm comes on unexpectedly, when the men are away in a remote part of the forest, then is the terrible time of struggle on the hillside, of anxiety in the home. The gale sweeps before it the falling and the already fallen snow in a whirling, blinding cloud. The dry, powdery particles fill the eyes, choke the nostrils, making sight and breathing alike difficult. The freezing wind chills to the bone. Even the mountaineers' skill and powers of endurance are tried to the utmost when overtaken by such a blizzard many miles away from any sheltering roof, with no fences to guide, and with all landmarks blotted out by the swirling snow-dust. It is a battle, long and stern, against the might of the storm. Hour after hour they fight on against the blinding, baffling drift, plunging through the deep wreaths, struggling against the numbing blast, until darkness falls on the short winter day. Deep is their thankfulness when at last they see, glimmering faintly through the driving snow, the lights of home.-Gentleman's Magazine.

THE encyclical of the Czar has drawn the attention of the world to the subject of war even more effectually than the Hispano-American dispute; it has caused millions of people to pause and think over the question in a totally new light. No campaign on record has caused the civilized world to weigh war in the balance, or think over the matter so thoroughly and so intelligently, as this unique Peace Manifesto has done.

During the last few weeks we have had brought forcibly to our notice the many reasons why we should no longer be content to abide by the arbitrament of the sword, why we should settle our disputes by might instead of right; and we have also been reminded that men are reasoning and not fighting crea

tures, therefore we should settle our differences by appealing to our higher and not lower nature. When might decides a quarrel, it is the might of men who fight but who do not know for what or why they fight. When there is a point at issue between nations, it has been the rule to decide the case by the brute force of men who do not understand the reason for the contention instead of by the intellectual ability of men who do.

Lately we have all been seeing, as we have never seen before, the causes and consequences of war; and probably many have now begun, if not before, to doubt the lawfulness of it. The reasons against war have not been advanced undisputed. The cynic and pessimist and the believer in impossibili

ties have not been behind in treating the world to a superabundance of chimeras. Among the arguments against war and in the category of evils which it directly and indirectly produces we are thoroughly familiar with: the loss of trade, the loss of property, the waste of life, and the waste of money; but the waste of genius, though by no means subordinate to the other evils, is hardly ever mentioned and perhaps never even thought of.

If we compare modern wars with those of ancient and medieval times, the dissimilarity which strikes one most forcibly is the difference in their length and duration.

The time the Greeks were before Troy, the long campaigns of the Crusades, the "Wars of the Roses," the "Seven Years' War," the "Thirty Years' War," were in point of time vastly different from the Franco-Prussian, the Russo-Turk, and the JapanChina wars. What has produced the change? Inventive genius. We are told that we owe this relief to the inventive power of Science. What is the advantage of this change? Because the time is less the loss of life is not likewise less; neither has the expense of war decreased with the time of its duration.

In modern warfare we can kill as many lives in thirty days as it took thirty years to kill once; and in thirty minutes we can expend wealth sufficient to carry on a thirty years' war in the old style. So the gain is not here. If we do not have so much actual fighting now, we have infinitely more anxiety and mental strain. The horrid nightmare of a European war makes us to live in a constant dread of that awful shock that will cause empires to fall. So it is evident that the inventive genius of science has only made war far worse than it once was.

In the times of old it was the personal prowess of those engaged which secured the victory, but now victory belongs to that side which has the best slaughtering machines, or to that side which has the most or can work them the quickest. This again is the result. of inventive genius.

War is infinitely more barbarous and

revolting now than it was a few hundred years ago. In the present day it is nothing less than scientific butchery; men are mowed down in unprecedented numbers in the space of a few minutes, and towns, with the inhabitants and property thereof, are utterly destroyed in an almost incredibly short space of time. What does personal bravery count for when men have to combat infernal machines? The quality which is most needed in the modern soldier is passive obedience to submit to be an unknown unit in a human target for the engines of war that science has produced. These changes which I have enumerated are the outcome of a certain kind of genius, and the result has been to make war a hundred times more calamitous and infamous. Therefore is not this genius wasted?

The amount of thought and ingenuity which the instruments of modern warfare must have required to have produced them is almost incomprehensible. Take the ordinary magazine rifle, a weapon of wonderful mechanism, one which has expended much brain power in its production, and this solely for the purpose of destroying human life when a fitting opportunity offers itself. Consider the quick-firing and other guns, the shells and torpedoes. Those who understand the latter will fully appreciate the genius which produced the torpedo, if not the torpedo itself. The Government dockyards are a marvellous representation of what time and thought can produce. Where can we find a better summary of the wonderful achievements of the inventive power of science than in the consideration of an ironclad in all its details? So strange and amazing do they appear to us that they are almost beyond comprehension. Enormous armaments have utilized enormous genius in their production; and a proof that that genius is wasted is in the fact that the thing itself is soon destroyed in times of war, and in times of peace they soon become out-of-date, and finally obsolete; after which they are sold for a price ridiculously small when compared with what they cost. The men who have invented these instruments for wholesale slaughter un

doubtedly possessed great genius. They used the power they were masters of in the best way for personal gain, but the world has gained nothing-only lost much. Why, then, did they invent these things? The demand created the supply. It was profitable for them to turn their attention to the invention of those things which the nations were frantic to possess. If we did not de

mand instruments of war they would not supply them, but would produce other and useful and beneficial things. Of course, the genius of these men was of a particular kind, but no one could believe that they were born with a proclivity to invent murderous instruments only. If there were no such thing as war, these men would have directed their talents to the invention of things that perhaps would have been of the greatest service to mankind. These we might have possessed had we not demanded the absurd engines of destruction instead, and thereby losing not only things that we might have had, but also the genius that could have produced them. Might they not have produced means of saving life instead of destroying it? Their unrivalled genius has been employed in perpetuating and making more terrible a relic of bar

barism instead of advancing civilization.

Our descendants will one day marvel at us tolerating such a system, in the same way as we wonder how our ancestors could tolerate many follies which we have seen and expelled.

In the times of peace and disarmament, which will one day come, inventiveness will take fresh strides and add many things to this world that will make life better worth living to the mass of the people.

Men

The genius which has been expended over war, and which might have been used in a profitable and lasting manner, is lost to the world forever. yet to be born may invent the things which men that are dead might have invented; still, this will not compensate the loss we have sustained. If the past had invented, the future would have improved upon it.

Science has obliterated distance, facilitated locomotion, rendered a hundred services to mankind; and might not that genius which is lost, if applied, have added much more to this list of inestimable benefits?

War has deprived the world of much that it had, and also of much that it might have had.-Westminster Review.