THROUGH THE YEAR 29 



a little by fire. Tracts of it, where the gorse and 

 heather are driving out the grass, are burnt black 

 from time to time by the freeholders ; and in a season 

 or two after each burning a little pasturage begins 

 to spring. These fires burn with a consuming fierce- 

 ness, acres of sheeted, crackling flame licking up 

 everything save a few of the largest and toughest 

 gorse stems, which they leave charred and naked ; 

 and singeing the willows and scrub at the edge of 

 the swamps. On some of the round barrows are 

 old pines, known as " the Gibbets," and the wonder 

 is how these trees, despite their high-borne platforms 

 of foliage, have escaped the black blasting of the 

 heath. 



I found this solemn, aloof tract fuller of wild life 

 even than the flats and " hams " between the 

 estuary and the sea headland six or seven miles 

 away. Cuckoos were shouting everywhere, flying 

 in twos and threes quite close to me, and many of 

 the meadow pipits on the dry heights of ling will 

 soon be sitting on more eggs than their own. 

 But the moor has far nobler game than the 

 cuckoo. Just as I had clambered over the rough 

 county boundary that cuts the moor in two, by the 

 gibbet pines on the barrow, I flushed two beautiful 

 ash-grey harriers, which stretched long, finely- 

 pointed grey wings and skimmed off close to the 

 ground with their perfect buoyancy. These birds 

 looked to me large and bright enough to be hen 

 harriers, but probably they were two male Montagu 

 harriers, summer visitors to the heath and swamps. 



