DISTRIBUTION OF THE HEATHER. 



on the mountains on which it grows ; for, although 

 it covers the summits of most of the hills in Eng- 

 land, many of the loftiest Highland hills rise high 

 above it, green with grass, or gray with moss and 

 lichens. The upper line runs from two to three 

 thousand feet in the counties of Perth, Aberdeen 

 and Inverness, varying according as it grows on 

 an elevated mountain range or on isolated peaks. 

 On the west coast of Scotland it is very often 

 found on a level with the seashore, almost ming- 

 ling with the dulse and bladder-wrack. In Nor- 

 way, strange to say. although the general surface 

 of the country is composed of high and barren 

 plateaux, it is so scarce and local that one may 

 travel hundreds of miles without finding a single 

 specimen. It is replaced in such localities by 

 the bearberry and crowberry, which form immense 

 continuous patches, and look, at a distance, especially 

 when withered, in spring or autumn, somewhat 

 like Heather. Although abundant on the European 

 side of the Ural Mountains, it disappears very sud- 

 denly and decidedly on the eastern declivity of the 

 range; and it is entirely absent from the whole of 

 northern Asia to the shores of the Pacific. Its north- 

 ern limit seems to be in Iceland, its southern in the 

 Azores. In Europe it covers large tracts of ground 

 in France, Germany and Denmark, particularly in 

 the lands of Bordeaux and the moors of Bretagne, 

 Angou and Maine ; while in Great Britain it exists in 

 every county, with the exception of Berks, Bucks, 

 Northampton, Radnor, Montgomery, Flint, Lincoln, 

 Ayr, Haddington, Linlithgow. 

 26 



