98 PLUVIALIS AUREA. 



jetty breasts is faintly obscured by the white vapours that 

 have crept up from the western valley, and presently all 

 around us is suffused with an opaline light, into the confines 

 of which a bird is dimly seen to advance, then another, and 

 a third. Who could represent the scene on canvas or card ? 

 — a hollow hemisphere of white shining mist, on which are 

 depicted two dark human figures, their heads surrounded 

 with a radiant halo, and these black-breasted Golden Plovers, 

 magnified to twice their natural size, and gazing upon us, 

 each from its mossy tuft. It is as if two mortals had a con- 

 ference on the heath with three celestial messengers — and so 

 they have. Presently a breeze rolls aw r ay the mist, and 

 discloses a number of those watchful sentinels, each on his 

 mound of faded moss, and all emitting their mellow cries the 

 moment w r e offer to advance. They are males, whose mates 

 are brooding over their eggs, or leading their down-clad and 

 toddling chicks among the to them pleasant peat-bogs that 

 intervene between the high banks, clad with luxuriant heath, 

 not yet recovered from the effects of the winter frosts, and 

 little meadows of cotton-grass, white as the snow-wreaths 

 that lie on the distant hill. How prettily they run over the 

 grey moss and lichens, their little feet twinkling, and their 

 full bright and soft eyes gleaming, as they commence their 

 attempts to entice us away from their chosen retreats. In 

 the midst of them alight some tiny things, black -breasted 

 too, with reddish backs and black nebs, and neat pointed 

 wings, which they stretch right up, and then fold by their 

 sides. These are Plovers' Pages, which also have their nests 

 on the moor. The mist rolls slowly away, and is ascending 

 in downy flakes the steep side of the corry, whence comes 

 suddenly on the ear the loud scream of the Curlew, — pleasing 

 too, but to the deer startling. The fewer of these birds on 

 the moors after the 12th of August, the better for the deer- 

 stalker ; but that day is far distant. Three harts that lay 

 ruminating among the long heath, half-dosing, and flapping 

 away the flies with their long ears, start on their feet ; they 

 stretch their sinewy limbs, and curve up their backs, and, 

 having inspected us, and judged us not trustworthy, they 

 move off at a gentle pace, tossing their antlered heads, and 



