RAMBLE VII. 



ON THE MOORS, THE COMMONS, AND THE 

 HEATHS. 



ONCE more the birds of our rambles change with 

 the change of scene. The wild and lonely moors, 

 those vast tracts of heather and bilberry, mingled 

 with bogs, half concealed by cotton-grass and 

 rushes, and studded with still, deep pools of clear 

 peat-dyed water, and broken into ridges and edges 

 of bare rocks and boulder-strewn hillsides, are the 

 chosen haunts of birds we may never meet else- 

 where. These moors are almost as little changed 

 as the mountains. They are too rugged and too 

 poor of soil to repay the agriculturist for reclaim- 

 ing them ; too bleak, too inaccessible, and too far 

 removed from centres of industry to tempt even 

 the most daring of speculative builders to adver- 

 tise them as eligible sites for modern residences 

 and so they have been left in peace through half 

 a century of revolution and improvement, and 

 thus the wild birds that dwell upon their broad 

 acres are still in undisturbed possession of their 

 ancient strongholds, and bid fair loag to remain 

 so. Perhaps even their breezy wastes may ulti- 

 mately succumb to the modern spirit of democracy 



