46 



SUMMER ON THE MOORS. 



June is the leafy month elsewhere ; and on the moors, 

 where there are no trees, there is some equivalent for the 

 absence of foliage, in the intense greenery of all vegetation. 

 Even the heather is now green, and with ling and bracken, 

 rush, grass, and sphagnum, all blend into a living carpet 

 of greens of varied and vivid tones. In the vales, the golden 

 bloom of the gorse is at its best about June 1st, and is 

 followed up, a little later, by the broom and hawthorn. The 

 ash-trees, always last, are hardly in full leaf till the middle 

 of the month, but the spruce is now very beautiful — each 

 dark green frond has an exquisite golden tip, and the cones 

 their crimson tinge. The regularity with which, in the 

 most adverse seasons, the hardier plants develop at their 

 appointed time, is marvellous ; as a Cheviot shepherd 

 remarked to me, on Royal Oak Day, the cherry- and apple- 

 blossoms in his little garden, " maun jest have come oot 

 through the season of the year, for they've no had one 

 right warm day to bring them oot this spring." 



On a small lough, on the Scottish side of the Border, we 

 enjoyed that day, what is always an intense pleasure to a 

 naturalist — that is, making the acquaintance of a species 

 which is new to him. Far away on the open water were several 

 ducks, which the binocular showed to be certainly Pochards ; 

 it is a curious fact, that in all the years I have followed 

 wildfowl, afloat and ashore, I bad never before that day 

 met with the Pochard in the north of England. In punt- 

 gunning on the coast, we never meet with them, nor had we 

 ever seen them before on the moorland loughs ; yet the 

 Pochard is described as a common species in many parts of 

 England, and is, I believe, frequently obtained by punt- 

 gunners as near as the Humber. 



