THE TEMPLES OF THE HILLS 261 



their aesthetic aspect, and as features in the landscape, 

 than as haunts of wild life. It is indeed as small 

 islands of animal life that I view them, scattered over 

 the sea-like smooth green waste, vacant as the sea. 

 To others it may not be so — to the artist, for example, 

 in search of something to draw. We have each our 

 distinct interests, aims, trades, or what you like: 

 that which I seek adds nothing to, and takes nothing 

 from his picture, and is consequently negligible. We 

 cannot escape the reflex effect of our own little 

 vocations — our pre-occupations with one side of 

 things, one aspect of nature. Their life is to me their 

 beauty, or the chief element in it, without which 

 they would indeed be melancholy places. It refreshes 

 me more than the shade of the great leafy roof on a 

 burning day. On this account, because of the life 

 in them, I prefer the clumps on the lower hills. They 

 grow more luxuriantly, often with much undergrowth, 

 sometimes surrounded with dense thickets of thorn, 

 furze, and bramble. These are attractive spots to 

 wild birds, and when not guarded by a gamekeeper 

 form little refuges where even the shy persecuted 

 species may breed in comparative security. It is 

 with a sense of positive relief that I often turn my 

 back on some great wood or forest where one naturally 

 goes in quest of woodland species, even after many 

 disappointments, to spend a day, or many days, 

 with the feathered inhabitants of one of these 

 isolated groves. 



The birds, too, may be better observed in these 

 places; they are less terrified at the appearance of 



