12 MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



the plant. But is' there not something very promising 

 in the results of a few experiments which have shown 

 that the fish-yield of freshwater lochs can be greatly 

 increased by pitching cartloads of bracken into the 

 waters ? The slow decay of the fern, due, as always, 

 to bacteria, promotes the multiplication of animalcules, 

 on which small crustaceans and the like depend. And 

 thus the fishes are fed. This, again, is the idea of the 

 circulation of matter. Nothing is ever lost, but passes 

 from one embodiment or incarnation to another. For 

 so the world goes round. It may be that bracken cast 

 upon the waters will return in many days in the form 

 of fishes, if not of loaves. The experiments referred 

 to should be continued, for we ought to get more bread 

 out of the freshwaters than we do, and the encroach- 

 ments of bracken on good pasture must be checked. 



As we made our way along the side of a small valley 

 we were alternately on firm and on soft ground, on 

 promontories with loose stones and in bays with bog- 

 moss and rushes. On the hard ground there were 

 Bluebells and Blue Scabious and gorgeous Ragworts. 

 The last would seem more beautiful if we saw them 

 less frequently and did not call them weeds. On the 

 soft ground there were stately Valerians and squat 

 Butterworts and other plants that like plenty of mois- 

 ture. In both places there were thistles and on the 

 thistles there was cuckoo-spit just about the last of 

 it for the season, for it gets rarer after midsummer. 

 There is no commoner sight than these frothy masses 

 on plants, and many people look at them with repul- 

 sion. But that is because they do not know the story. 

 There are various kinds of cuckoo-spit, all made by 

 the young stages of small plant-sucking insects (Frog- 



