ON THE MOUNTAINS 191 



plants, which make the June hills bright, are past 

 the flowering stage, and, in their sober dress, easily 

 overlooked from a distance. 



That pleasant scent is not of whin, but of the 

 bog myrtle on the moister portions of the lower 

 slopes. The shrub of the mountains is not broom, 

 but juniper. As it struggles upward, it dwindles 

 into a bush, which is quite needlessly spoken of as 

 if it were not the same. 



In ascending, it is interesting to watch the trees. 

 There are only three to attract attention the Scots 

 fir, the birch, and the willow. The Scots fir has 

 no alpine representative. It lessens, but is allowed 

 to remain the same species throughout. When it 

 has reached the minimum of size, it is still only a 

 little fir. 



The birch cowers closer and closer to the 

 mountain-side or to the rock, until it becomes 

 less a tree than a bush; and each step in the 

 intervening process is represented, so that the eye 

 can follow the passage from one extreme to the 

 other. But the wise conservatism in the case of 

 the Scots fir is departed from ; and, as with the 

 jumper, the stunted birch is spoken of as if it were 

 another. The probability is that bush birches are 

 alpines of the Shetland .pony kind, which could be 



