A WEEK IN THE HILLS 9 



parent birds clings to the nest and the adjacent 

 branches. The nest is very flat, and of the two eggs 

 one is almost spotless, the other mottled all over 

 with streaks of rust colour and lilac-grey. 



The Buzzards still wheel above us in ever-widening 

 circles, the female always the nearer ; their cries 

 wakening the echoes of the gorge below. But now 

 the light fails us, and so we leave, wending our way 

 homewards in the gloaming ; nothing, save the in- 

 cessant piping of the Summer Snipe, breaking the 

 almost oppressive stillness. 



At last our goal is reached, where hill mutton fit 

 for the gods, with delicious home-made bread and 

 prime ale, await us, to which ample justice is done; 

 and then, after the fragrant weed, to bed, to dream 

 of the Buzzard in his haunt, and full of ideas for the 

 morrow, which dawns as fair a May Day as one 

 could desire. Breakfast over by 7.30, we are on the 

 tramp again, starting for what proves to be rather a 

 long day. 



Now follow with us the course of this typical hill- 

 stream, teeming with small brown trout ; for here 

 they seldom run very large, though the keeper tells 

 us of at least one monster. A Dipper dashes up 

 stream, piping as he flies. How beautifully he takes 

 the undulating course of the river ! generally keeping 

 to it, but every now and then making a detour across 

 some tussocky plateau, where the stream almost 

 describes a semicircle. 



Higher up, close to a most enchanting-looking 

 fall, we drop across his nest, which, built in a rock- 

 formed angle, looks nothing more than a mass of 



