48 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



the still shorter grass of the chalk downs of southern 

 England, those 



" Eusset lawns and fallows gray, 

 Where the nibbling flocks do stray." 



For there the light air comes from the sea ; though 

 not iced, it is fresh with the salt water ; and as it 

 breathes through the long bents and gathers the 

 fragrance of the thyme, it dries up every tiny drop 

 of moisture that has not already sunk into the 

 porous soil, and gives you free leave to throw your- 

 self without a thought of consequences on the grass, 

 within an hour or two after a scudding shower has 

 refreshed the thirsty down. 



One languid June, when duties came to an end at 

 Oxford, it so happened that I could not seek the 

 light air and short grass I longed for, either in the 

 Alps or on the downs; and it was only an accident 

 that took me for three or four days to a hospitable 

 house in the Welsh hills, where I found all I needed. 

 It was a district offering little of the "striking 

 scenery " which attracts the tourist, and he is almost 

 unknown in those parts ; there is in fact no ac- 

 commodation for him. During a six weeks' stay in 

 the wildest part of these hills some twenty years 

 ago, working hard and trying to beguile unwilling 

 trout, I saw but one pair of tourists. You may 

 walk for miles over high wet moorland and never 



