8 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



the moor through a gigantic lens, magnifying a hundred 

 times : 



' The heather plants would be as tall as lofty elms, their 

 flowers as big as cabbages, the grouse would be six or seven 

 times the size of ' Chantecler ' at the Porte St. Martin ; 

 creeping and wriggling up the stem and over the leaves, 

 and gradually yet surely making their way towards the 

 flowers, would be seen hundreds and thousands of silvery 

 white worms about the size of young earthworms. Lying 

 on the leaves and on the plant generally would be seen 

 thousands of spherical bodies the size of grains of wheat, the 

 cysts of coccidium [a minutely microscopic Protozoon 

 parasite] ; and on the ground and on the plants, as large as 

 split peas, would be seen the tapeworm eggs patiently 

 awaiting the advent of their second host. It is perhaps a 

 picture that will not appeal to all, yet it represents what, 

 unseen and unsuspected, is always going on upon a grouse 

 moor.' [The Grouse in Health and Disease, 1911.] 



It may be said that the naturalist has beyond all others 

 a discipline in the fine art that Blake spoke of as grasping 

 infinity in the palm of the hand. Even about the dry 

 twigs of the heather, there is a bustle of life. 



Sometimes we get an impression of the prodigal wealth 

 of life with overwhelming convincingness. Describing a 

 visit to a Lapland bird-berg, the nesting-place of guillemots, 

 razor-bills, and puffins, the naturalist Brehm wrote : 



' The whole hill was alive. Hundreds of thousands of 

 eyes looked upon us as we intruded. From every hole and 

 corner, from every peak and ledge, out of every cleft, 

 burrow, or opening, they hurried forth, right, left, above, 

 beneath ; the air, like the ground, teemed with birds. 

 From the sides and from the summit of the berg thousands 



