AMONGST THE HEATHER AND GORSE. 13 



in even greater plenty farther north. Although, 

 from an ornithological point of view, they are 

 somewhat disappointing, a long residence upon 

 their borders and many rambles across them seem 

 to suggest a selection from the various notes 

 relating to their bird-life which we have, made 

 from time to time. 



Take Dartmoor, for instance, of unenviable 

 notoriety in one respect, and that its convict 

 prison, which rests like a great granite scar on 

 the otherwise fertile and luxuriant country-side ; 

 a vast waste of almost primeval upland, billowy in 

 its unevenness, rising on every side into lofty tors, 

 or sinking into rock-bound valleys, or widening 

 out into level expanses of treacherous bog, scored 

 in all directions with dancing streams, and strewn 

 with huge boulders of granite. Fern and heather 

 and gorse seem everywhere striving to gain supre- 

 macy and threatening to overgrow the pastures 

 and patches of cultivated ground that have been 

 snatched, as it were, from the waste. And yet the 

 verdure and fertility for which Devon is so famous 

 are largely due to the abundant moisture which 

 gathers on Dartmoor and disperses to the low- 

 lands in that wonderful network of rills and rivers 



