CHAPTER VI 



I LOVE my mother's country in the heart of Fell-land 

 with a passion that can never die. Its fresh, cool 

 breezes, grey limestone crags, and chattering becks 

 tumbling over mossy boulders, appeal to me with the 

 same instinctive longing that sends a little bird over a 

 thousand miles of sea and land to the beloved old'hedge- 

 row in which it first fluttered its tiny wings and learnt 

 something of the freedom of the air. 



Thither let us journey and tarry for a while amongst 

 our feathered friends in their peaceful haunts, far, far 

 away from the hum and turmoil of men. 



From one cause or another the wild life of any given 

 district ebbs and flows if it be watched carefully over 

 a series of years. The peewit, or lapwing, used to be 

 one of the commonest birds on the fells a few years ago, 

 but the barbaric fashion of eating the bird and its eggs 

 at the same season has reduced its numbers far below 

 those of the curlew in some districts. This is very re- 

 grettable from the bird-lover's point of view, but as the 

 lapwing is one of the farmer's most useful allies in the 

 production of human food there is another and far more 

 serious aspect of the case to be considered. 



The upper reaches of the River Eden are rich in bird 

 life. Picture to yourself a few acres of more or less flat 



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