O'er Fell and Dale 



birch trees, with here and there a thorn or solitary holly 

 thrown in and great slopes covered with coarse bent 

 grass. 



Grouse would appear to be changing their habits. 

 The rocky knoll on the left side of our picture forms part 

 of a large grass pasture, or " 'lotment " as the natives 

 in these parts call a grazing field carrying a good stock 

 of mares and foals, heifers, and ewes and lambs, yet 

 grouse now come down from the heathery slopes to 

 breed in it in increasing numbers. In 1920 one bird 

 made a nest in it and laid five eggs, but only succeeded 

 in hatching off a single chick on account of the depreda- 

 tions of carrion crows. In 1922 a grouse bred in exactly 

 the same place with better luck, and two others carried 

 off normal broods of seven or eight chicks in this field. 



At the foot of the ghyll stands a very lonely old 

 farmhouse on the very ramparts of the inhabitable, in 

 winter time at any rate. One end of the building drops 

 sheer into the noisy beck that drains the ghyll, and just 

 behind there is a rough, boulder-strewn piece of ground 

 half an acre in extent that bears every evidence of 

 having been covered by the waters of the stream in 

 raging flood. 



One morning I passed a partridge sitting safe and 

 snug beneath a tuft of dead bracken on this patch of 

 ground, but alas ! poor bird, upon returning that way in 

 the evening I was chagrined to discover a few small 

 feathers scattered round and not a single egg left in the 

 nest. She had undoubtedly lost the feathers whilst 

 trying to defend her eggs. 



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