BIRD LIFE, ETC. 191 



tinged with a pale purplish blue. Beautifully delicate 

 are the tints of the few fleecy cloudlets that rise in the 

 north-west ; but the setting sun assumes no imposing 

 glory, and as he passes on seems to smile a gentle good- 

 night on the brown moors of Glen Gairn. 



The red grouse call to each other on the hill-side ; 

 here, a solitary grey hare bounds quietly among the 

 short heather, stops to listen and look around, then 

 pursues its way ; some hooded crows, that have been 

 prowling about, are flying down the little valley ; dimness 

 envelops the low grounds, then the bases of the hills, 

 creeping upwards, slowly, imperceptibly, but surely, like 

 age and time, ever moving onward, and involving all 

 things in darkness. There is now no sound but the 

 sighing of the breeze ; and as we descend over the long 

 smooth declivity, clad with thick heather, we pause not 

 to listen to the hum of distant waterfalls, or the shriek 

 of the white owl, for no torrents rush over these moors, 

 nor ruined towers rise on the brown hills, where the 

 gor-cock (Lagopus scoticus), escaped from the gun of 

 the unpitying sportsman, crouches with the remnant of 

 his family. Natural History of Deeside, pp. 207, 208. 



35. THREE PINE TREES. 



Three stunted trees among rubbish have a most 

 singular effect. One can hardly believe his eyes when 

 they tell him they are pines. How came they there ? 

 What is their purpose ? Why are there not more of 



