I A Gossip on a Suther-lavd Hill-side 237 



found, growing on a soil knee -deep in vegetable 

 mould, or perched on the top of a moss-grown 

 boulder, that gives it an uncertain foothold for the 

 time, and then betrays it to the first great blast that 

 sweeps from the sea. It is curious that the great 

 destructive agent of so northern a tree should be 

 snow ; thousands of birches are destroyed whenever 

 snow falls early enough to find the leaf on the tree ; 

 and as far south as Sussex I have seen the tops of 

 innumerable birches snapped off by its weight, even 

 in winter time. Struck down by wind or snow, the 

 birch lies for a time perfect in form and colour, but 

 crumbling to dust internally when touched by the 

 foot ; and in the powdery humus the long rich moss 

 finds a fit nidus for its spores, and in a short time 

 all is covered with a green soft carpet, dying at the 

 bottom, growing at the top, the dead part furnishing 

 food for the new generation, and so the peat moss 

 grows — getting gradually dry enough for heather, 

 and maybe even for pasture. 



The idea of the first canoe must have been taken 

 from a birch in the state one so often sees it in the 

 north. Long after the interior has crumbled to 

 dust, the silver bark retains its form and colour, and 

 the noble savage who stumbled over it had nothing 

 to do but to stitch the two ends together with a 

 sinew, dab on a bit of gum, and learn to sit steady 

 in it. In Sutherland the birches were too small, 

 and the rivers too wild, to induce even the Pechts to 

 take to this form of boat-building ; being a pastoral 



