AMONG THE SOUTHERN UPLANDS 227 



garden of Scotland, just as I regard the northern 

 hills as the alpine garden. If some of the 

 rarer forms are absent, those which are there, 

 abound. 



The brittle fern, the most graceful of all the 

 forms and what is rarity, compared with grace, 

 except to the dry - as - dust naturalist is, in 

 many places, as common as the bracken or the 

 grass. 



The male parsley fern waves above the wastes of 

 stones, and hides away the rudeness under its 

 feathery fronds; the oblong Woodsia is common 

 here a corrie or linn, in the flank of this same 

 Whitcoom, is a favourite haunt ; while the filmy 

 fern, in countless numbers, seems to filter every 

 drip of water. 



Before leaving the hostelry, I open the visitors' 

 book and run down row upon row of uninteresting 

 names. On turning over a page, my eye is 

 arrested by the sketch of a tourist's back, 

 with fishing - basket and other belongings of 

 sport and travel strapped thereon as if for final 

 departure. The man who did this knew the use 

 of his pencil. 



The lines beneath, which I quote, less because of 

 their literary merit the author was not so much 



