226 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



in gloom over the lifeless swamp; even the moor fowl 

 cries as in agony, and the swift swallow, chasing light- 

 winged dragon-flies over the rushes, twitters in an un- 

 dertone, and utters mournful complaints. Poverty alone 

 dwells on the borders of these desolate plains ; low huts 

 scarcely venture to raise their turf-roofs a few feet above 

 the ground, and the dwellers on marsh and moor show 

 in their- pale, downcast features, that the clear air of heaven 

 but rarely greets them, and that the pure water of high- 

 land springs is a luxury unknown. 



Yet, these moors are a world of their own, peopled by 

 races of beings, found nowhere else, and furnished with 

 plants unknown to other lands. They have their history 

 as well as the lofty mountain and the rich valley ; they 

 are born, they grow and prosper, they decay and vanish. 



On many a plain, on lofty table-lands, or close to the 

 ocean's restless pulse, wherever water gathers, from a 

 thousand invisible sources, little pools and miniature lakes 

 are formed, which the clayey ground or solid rock beneath 

 prevents from reaching their great home in the sea. Upon 

 these waters little tiny plants appear, hardly visible con- 

 fervas ; they come, man knows not whence, but they mul- 

 tiply in amazing haste and soon cover the stagnant pool 

 with living green. Of a sudden, however, they are gone ; 

 they have sunk down to the bottom. There they form 

 layer upon layer ; slowly, indeed, for the naked eye 

 measures them only by hundreds of generations; but as 

 particles of sand and stone gather in their hidden folds, 

 and as the bodies and shells of countless minute animals, 

 who found a home in the waters above, are buried amidst 



