60 WILD LIFE OF SCOTLAND 



may indicate in this, as in other cases, that the 

 sheldrake's eggs are exposed to greater risks. 

 The birds walk over the grass rather than waddle ; 

 and altogether their movements are freer, and their 

 appearance more graceful than those of the other 

 ducks. 



Flat as the palm of the hand, except where a 

 low ridge of crumbling sand-dunes shuts out the 

 view of the sea, the moor flows away on all sides. 

 It still wears the sober livery of winter. The 

 heather is dark, the grasses a faded yellow, the 

 sand, where exposed, tawny. A shadow on a moor, 

 as it darkens in succession heath, and sorrel, and 

 rnoor-grass, and shelly mound, and leafless trunk, 

 and dark fir-copse, and picturesque sand-dune, is 

 different from a shadow anywhere else. A darker 

 cloud, with just a few drops of rain, gives yet 

 stronger contrasts, and intenser effects. It is easy 

 to understand now why a painter should find the 

 scene at once so alluring, and so disappointing. It 

 eludes the utmost refinement of brush, or word. 

 One feels its power, without being able to reproduce 

 it ; learns its secret, without knowing how to tell it 

 over again. 



Not a flower, or fresh blade appears on all its 

 surface. A few scattered willows, a clump of trees, 



