BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



t> fykes -faro seres to support each sheep there are barrens 

 -where' even 1 r tliis 'proportion is largely exceeded and the 

 minimum for a man may thus be roughly set down at five 

 hundred to a thousand. Thus the hill-country is all but 

 uninhabited, abandoned to shepherds and flock-masters, 

 where sequestered homes lie scattered among the recesses of 

 the hills. A hardy race are these to whom ovis Udens is 

 the praterea nihil of life, for the more severe the weather 

 the greater the necessity to " keep the hill " : and kindly 

 and hospitable they are forbye, as the belated traveller can 

 testify who has lost his way among the mists of cloudland 

 on the fell-tops. 



An initial difficulty in describing the bird-life of any given 

 area throughout the year, is to decide at which point to 

 begin. New Year's Day suits human purposes well enough ; 

 but Nature provides no break in her cycle, and no single 

 point of time can be found at which her various operations 

 can start level. Hence these chapters will necessarily 

 partake something of the character of those golden serpents 

 which one sees made into ladies' bracelets, and which com- 

 plete the continuity of their circle by taking a large piece 

 of their tails into their jaws. 



The opening months of the year are uninteresting and 

 uneventful on the moors. There is but little perceptible 

 change from the conditions which prevailed during Novem- 

 ber and December, and an outline of the ornithological 

 features of those months will be found in due course. Hence 

 there is little attraction to detain us till the advent of spring, 

 or of the vernal influence, at which somewhat indefinite 

 period these notes will therefore commence. 



Springtide is a subject on which, from time immemorial, 

 poets and those of vivid imagination have delighted to 

 descant. And, truly, there is a charm in the idea of the 

 rejuvenescence of all Nature's productions at this season 

 when everything becomes revivified, and new life springs 

 afresh in bird, beast, and plant which is generative of 

 poetic instinct. In these chapters, however, the author is 

 necessarily restrained from indulgence in any sentimental 

 effusiveness beyond what may be dictated by the logic of 



