i7o WILD FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND 



heath zone, and only three of the hardiest of an 

 immense family have been able to penetrate so far. 



If hills and hardship had anything to do with it, 

 then the east side of the North Sea is still more 

 favourable. The scene is more broken, the climate 

 severer, and more arctic than our own. If this 

 were a northern type, we should expect to find it 

 flourishing there ; whereas the first thing that 

 strikes a visitor to Norway, next to the abundance 

 of alpines, is the scarcity of heaths. This came 

 as a surprise to the experienced members of the 

 Scottish Alpine Club. 



" I climbed," says Archibald Geikie, " a slope, 

 clothed with luxuriant masses of ferns, bilberries, 

 and cloudberries ; " but no mention of heaths. 



We are accustomed to associate grouse and 

 heather. Yet the Norwegian willow grouse, in 

 the absence of that shrub, thrives on something 

 else. Our own grouse are heather birds indeed, 

 alike in tint and diet; but not hill birds, seeing 

 that heather is not a hill shrub. Some were 

 doubtless driven to the slopes, whose sole advantage 

 is their dryness, as a last refuge from the plough. 

 As many still live on the plain as the scanty 

 patches of lowland moor left will support. 



The ling alone seems able to bear the severity 



