98 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



grouse crowed. The skylark and titlark, birds which 

 were there thirty years before, had altered their habits, 

 adapting themselves to changed conditions; they, perhaps, 

 were the sole survivors of the old avifauna. Corn and 

 roots had not only replaced ling and bilberry, but dock, 

 goosefoot, and nettle had vanished; the tip was a tip no 

 longer. 



In the centre of the great cultivated area we met a 

 bread van, and by the side of the track, where some of the 

 latest rubbish had been dumped, noted the remnants of a 

 bound magazine. A plough was cutting straight furrows 

 through the rich earth, and every yard it turned up 

 fragments of crockery; in years to come will archaeologists 

 collect and piece together some of these fragments to 

 study the ceramic art of the twentieth century ? Will they 

 write learned papers on the strange habits of an ancient 

 civilisation which scattered its glass and china broad- 

 cast ? Or will they talk more correctly of these municipal 

 " kitchen middens "? 



1921 



There has been less change during these last few years, 

 the decade nearing completion; the hedges are denser 

 and higher, the fields yield better results under crop 

 rotation; the flagging city trees, after a spell in pots in 

 the smoky air, recruit in the nurseries; the motor van 

 and lorry cross unquaking roads, the tractor furrows rich 

 soil. The waste land is perfectly reclaimed. 



Is it purely sentimental to regret the change ? Neai 

 forty years have passed since those happy, careless days 

 of boyhood, and now, 



" ItVhen we look back and regretfully wonder 

 What we were like in our work and our play," 



did we really appreciate the beauty of the moor, or has 



