150 SCOTLAND AT MIDSUMMER 



assume that the black discs, sprinkled as regularly 

 over the surface as currants through a well-made cake, 

 are as much part of the regular leaf-design as the 

 chocolate patches on the leaves of dog's-tooth violet. 

 Luckily, the injury done by the fungus seems to be 

 infinitesimal ; the sycamore, with its ample foliage, being 

 able to sustain with impunity this moderate tax upon 

 its respiratory organs. The fungus has rather a complex 

 life-history. Its first stage appears in June in the shape 

 of circular yellow patches about the size of a currant, 

 containing cells wherein certain narrow and curved germs 

 are conceived. The patch soon turns black, and nothing 

 further happens till the leaf falls to the ground. In the 

 following spring, the cells in the patch are full of needle- 

 shaped bodies, the ripe spores of the fungus, ready to 

 propagate an apparently aimless and useless existence. 

 How they effect a passage from the soil to the new leaves 

 has not been explained; but the journey must be safe 

 and easy, because among the myriad leaves of the largest 

 sycamore hardly one may be found in August without its 

 quota of black spots. 



XXXVIII 



Nobody knows Scotland at its best and fairest who is 

 ti n k f arQ ili ar with its sea and shore, its river 



at Mid- banks and woodlands, while summer is yet in 

 summer j tg p rnne The thousands of visitors who 

 throng its hotels and country houses in the usual holiday 

 season probably find it preferable to the southern realm, 

 or they would not come north ; but by the time the grouse 

 are strong on the wing, the season will be already on the 

 wane, the birds will have ceased their song, the foliage 



