26 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



tappings of the death watches, to the thrills of the 

 bob-o'-link from the tail features of the snipe 

 to the throat of the nightingale. The higher 

 animals are built on the simple and effective lines 

 that have won out in the struggle for existence. 

 But the fact is that life would have honoured any 

 draft whatever on her, even, as she has proved, to 

 gills on our fingers or lungs on our toes according 

 to circumstances. Our ears are in our heads indeed, 

 but life would not have boggled at placing them 

 anywhere, even in our legs, as in the grasshoppers. 



East and west through the shaking land run the 

 narrow raised ways which mark the original level 

 of the country. The surface on either side has long 

 since been cut away and these strips of high ground 

 which have been left have served as primitive 

 roads over which the peat harvest in former days 

 has been carried away. Bunyan must have seen 

 a road like this, for, as in the way through the 

 Valley of the Shadow there is on either side a deep 

 ditch here filled with black water or a dangerous 

 quag. But on the narrow ground between it is 

 dry, with flowers everywhere : while the crisp smell 

 of the moor, and of the antiseptic peat, lingers on 

 the nostrils like the pungent aroma of the pepper 

 trees and the blue gums in Southern California. 



Overhead in the air the wild ducks circle still all 

 males. Thick on the air, travelling ever in one 

 direction, come the feathered reed-seeds of last year. 

 On all hands stretch the meres and leads of dark 

 water. The deeper parts are thick with tall reeds 

 of last year, showing at this season large heads of 

 white down scattering on the wind. The shallows 

 are overgrown with long sedgy grass, rising in places 



