BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



CHAPTER I 



MOORLANDS OF THE BORDER 



The Dawn of Spring 



Without going beyond the boundaries of our Island, 

 there yet remains many a wild corner neglected and 

 unknown. Of such the Borderland is an example. 

 Stretching from Cheviot to the Solway, these uplands 

 comprise, in either country, an area covering hundreds 

 of square miles of mountain and moor, and include 

 within their limits scenery which, sui generis, cannot 

 be rivalled within the four s'eas. It must, however, be 

 added that the peculiar beauty of the Cheviot range is 

 rather characteristic than sensational — or "clamant," if 

 I may borrow Professor Geikie's expressive term. 



The region covered by these observations I would 

 define as that mountain-land which remains as created, 

 unaltered by the hand of man- — the land "in God's own 

 holding" — bounded by the line where the shepherd's 

 crook supplants the plough ; where heather and bracken, 

 whinstone and black-faced sheep repel corn, cattle, and 

 cultivation ; where grouse and blackcock yet retain their 



A 



