64 FIELD AND FERN. 



56-inch barrier, and prevents the fire from spreading 

 down wind, while the drain furnishes drink to the 

 grouse in a dry season, and is never too deep to 

 -drown the broods. The squares in all their varied 

 rotation hues look very beautiful on the side of a 

 hill, and in the third summer after burning they will 

 always hide a grouse. 



The coast road from Helmsdale to the Mound, 

 with its dark masses of crag and verdure, is quite 

 our favourite stretch upon Scottish ground. We 

 like to scramble about the hillocks at Crakaig, and 

 watch the Shetland cows, with their lusty, long-haired, 

 black-roan calves, feeding*in a troop along the beach, 

 and a shorthorn yearling bull in command, as white 

 as Europa^s love. The evergreen gorse, from which 

 the Kintradwell Clumber scorns to flinch, flourishes 

 with the wild willow hard by those rabbit-haunted 

 links. The otter glides up Collieburn, and calls after 

 its loch-fishing, to enjoy a trout under the ledge of 

 the bramble-fringed rocks, where the kestrel has 

 its eyrie, and from which the wood-pigeon sweeps 

 forth witli a strong rushing flight, as if an East 

 Lothian price were set 011 its eggs and head. Par- 

 tridges scurry along among the sand-hills, where the 

 sheldrake builds in the deserted rabbit-hole, and 

 hatches her brood of sixteen ; and the notes of the 

 plover, the oyster-picker, and the ring-dotterel break 

 in all their varied cadence on a naturalist's ear. 



As night draws on, sea-birds of every form are 

 " crushing the air to sweetness" with their strange 



