234 THE RING OF NATURE 



fleshy pink blossom is of the same bottle shape, 

 and gives a generous taste of nectar when it is 

 held to the tongue. But in August when the 

 ' hurts ' themselves come it is good to be up on 

 Dunkerry Beacon, Anstey Down, or anywhere 

 in Exmoor ; to put our hand under the box-like 

 sprays and tickle the fruit off till we have twenty 

 or a hundred of the cleanest, solidest, sweetest 

 fruit that grows, a mouthful to swallow and good 

 provender for the system withal. By the lane- 

 sides of moorland Somerset and Devon it grows 

 extra large, and the traveller who has a bit of 

 bread and butter to go with it for civilization's 

 sake has no need of the tavern board. And the 

 gourmet whose happy stomach is sound has never 

 tasted anything so wealthy as farm-house bread 

 spread with whortleberry jam and crowned with 

 Devonshire cream. 



The cranberry, red whortleberry, or cowberry is 

 not so well known, growing in comparatively few 

 chosen bogs. Nor is it a raw berry, but cultivate, 

 dear reader, the love of cranberry jam. There are 

 few better tonics, and the cranberry must have 

 been a veritable life-saver in the days before man 

 domesticated other fruits and vegetables, as a 

 wholesome change from meat and corn. The 

 fruit of the bearberry is usually left for the grouse 

 which, in demolishing its crowded red clusters, 

 rob the moor of its greatest September beauty. 

 I do not leave them all the cloudberries when I 

 come across them gleaming like red blackberries 



