SCOTLAND.
The Royal Family enjoy a very strict retirement at Balmoral. On Fri- day last, the Queen and Prince Albert walked with Viscountess Jocelyn to the top of Lochnagar. The Prince pursues the sports of deer-stalking and shooting, with considerable success. For safe entertainment on Loch Muick, a " trim rowing-boat " has been built at Aberdeen, and excursions with the children are part of the pleasant routine. Prince Albert's thirtieth birthday fell on Sunday last, and was celer brated at Balmoral on Monday, by Highland games, terminating in hand- some donations to the most excellent. In the evening, the Wizard of the North exhibited his sleights before the Queen and a party of guests invited from the neighbouring gentry and the tenantry of the Balmoral estate; and the day was wound up by a ball at which her Majesty appeared. Lord John Russell arrived at Balmoral on Wednesday week, and is ex- pected to stay for a fortnight. The Court " is expected " to return to Osborne about the 20th of Sep- tember; the Queen to travel by the Caledonian Railway, as she did last year.
Wednesday the 22d August was observed by all the congregations be- longing to the Free Church in Dundee as a day of solemn humiliation and prayer, on account of the prevalence of the cholera.—Dundee Advertiser.
Mr. Charles Forsyth, Sheriff-Substitute of Caithness, was drowned in the Loch of Watten, on the 22d August. ale was out on the loch in a boat with his ser- vant; a squall came upon them; they were instantly upset, and both perished.
One day last week, as a St. Monance boat was engaged in its usual avocation of fishing for herrings, the crew were rather surprised to find a xiphia or sword. fish entangled in one of their nets. It has been presented to Captain Fielden, as a natural curiosity for his museum. It is of rather a graceful form, and measures ten feet from tip to tip; the length of the sword or protuberance from the snout is two feet ten inches; its tail is horizontal, and measures three feet from tip to tip; and the girth of the body, round the middle, about four feet. The head is long, and indicates great power.—Fife Herald.
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