XXII 



CONCERNING the relative beauty of different kinds of 

 Birch and tree, it avails nothing to argue. As many 

 Beech men, so many minds. The Psalmist (or, if we 

 are to lend an ear to the higher critics, that syndicate 

 of authors who provided psalms for King David to 

 sing), gave the first place to ' the cedars of Lebanon 

 which the Lord hath planted.' Virgil preferred the 

 ash in the forest the pine in the pleasure ground : 

 Fraxinus in silvis pulcherrima, pinus in hortis. Mr. 

 MacWhirter, R.A., is never weary of depicting the 

 slender grace of the birch, and recently I was ready to 

 vow he had chosen the fairest tree of British growth. 

 It was in a Highland birch wood; the clouds were 

 parting after twelve hours' rain, and all the plumes of 

 tender young green responded with myriad sparkles to 

 the sunbeams. The stems gleamed dull like oxydised 

 silver; all the verdant carpet was laced with delicate 

 oak-fern and spangled with anemones, primroses, and 

 blue hyacinths, save where breadths of last year's 

 bracken streaked the soaking slopes with golden 

 brown. 



It were hard to find a lovelier scene ; yet memory 



