How the fell partridge^ thrives, and by what 

 exercise of strategy he manages to elude the vigilant 

 attention of the greyhound foxes that are always 

 roaming over the fells, can best be explained by the 

 shepherds whose duties necessitate the devotion of 

 their lives to the charge of the flocks which wander 

 over the hill pastures. These uneducated men take 

 an intelligent interest in the welfare of all the wild 

 creatures that share with them the solitudes of the 

 remote uplands. Quiet and undemonstrative in their 

 exterior, they can often tell a good story by the side 

 of a peat fire ; nor do they disdain to relate their 

 simple every-day experiences with fur and feather, 

 beguiling their narrative with an occasional spice of 

 dry and wholesome mother-wit. 



It is to these fell folk that you must go if you 

 desire to learn whether the ravens are nesting this 

 season in the same beetling precipice from which their 

 young ones flew last year in safety, or whether the 

 white vixen fox is still inhabiting her earth below the 

 discarded quarry, or to hear the earliest news of the 

 cuckoo's arrival among the persecuted 'moss-cheepers.' 



They are sparing of words, are these simple moun- 

 taineers, especially so with strangers ; but when once 

 the ice has been broken, their reticence vanishes, and 

 a flow of conversation follows. They have trained 



