ON THE MOUNTAINS 199 



annoyed at the liberty allowed to another, who 

 was digging and tearing at his own sweet will, 

 and generally doing as much as he could to make 

 the hills not worth climbing. 



Something might be accomplished if proprietors 

 once more rose above the commercial spirit, which 

 was wont to be no part of the furnishing of a 

 gentleman, and, setting themselves to find out 

 what was best worth preserving on their respective 

 properties, watched over these with the utmost 

 jealousy if, among other things, they took as 

 much trouble to make themselves acquainted with 

 their wealth of alpines as some of their servants 

 find it profitable to do. 



It might seem Quixotic to suggest a close-time 

 for rare and beautiful plants, to be fixed, as in the 

 case of animals at the breeding-season, when they 

 are flowering and seeding for another generation. 

 But surely the same restrictions which guard our 

 game should be placed around those relics of a 

 glacial age, which belong to Scotland because she 

 is what she is, which were there before the Celt, or 

 even the earlier race he dispossessed, and are still 

 more a part of the scene than the grouse or the 

 ptarmigan. 



