ON THE MOUNTAINS 179 



if they cared to use them. Compared with their 

 systematic work, the zig-zagging of an occasional 

 naturalist is trilling and ineffective, leaving vast 

 tracks on either hand unexplored. They quarter 

 every interesting hill in Scotland, cross every yard 

 of every slope and summit, and that at the bright 

 season of the year, when all the later and rarer 

 alpines are in flower. Granting a little natural 

 curiosity, they might have many a pleasant 

 revelation to make. Others must have passed 

 that patch, but no one had thought it worth 

 his while to pause, or tell over again that such 

 a thing was there. 



But this was a sportsman of the proper sort, 

 to whom the birds w r ould have been nothing 

 without the background and the thousand little 

 touches that made their upland home charming. 

 In after years he did not think it worth his 

 while to rehearse how r many brace had fallen 

 to his gun. True, it was before the days of 

 sensational bags, when, as yet, grouse-shooting 

 was a gentlemanly sport. 



But I have heard him tell, with great anima- 

 tion, of the delight with which he looked on 

 that vision of beauty. And I know that it 

 remained a lovely spot on his memory to the 



