WHEN MARCH WINDS BLOW. 141 



patches of whortleberry-shrubs in rank luxuriance, 

 that will make cover but bear no fruit they are 

 too thick and high for that ; rush - clumps and 

 moss, torey-grass and the finest green turf; small 

 shallow pools where the rush - clumps grow, and 

 patches of quaky ground of all sizes, also of various 

 degrees of moisture. So far as a feeding-ground 

 is concerned, there could be no better; but half a 

 mile below their old nesting-place a wood covered 

 on its slopes with beeches, oak, fir, thorns, and 

 bracken, not to forget huge holly-clumps a fine 

 mansion has been built, timber felled, roads made, 

 hill-quakes drained, and water conducted from the 

 moor above to supply the mansion below. When 

 all this actually reduced their nesting - haunt to 

 quite half its dimensions, no wonder the birds 

 became few in number. The few pairs that come 

 about there now keep to the top of the wood on the 

 fringe of the moor. 



The brown owls hoot, and hoot again. From 

 the wood, with lazy flapping flight just clearing 

 the low trees on the edge of it on the moor-side, 

 a couple of birds appear. From their flight, any 

 ordinary observer would take them to be a pair 



