MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



unaccustomed to rich meadow-feeding, and 

 when their descendants nowadays are turned 

 out into a field of clover they overeat them- 

 selves at once, and suffer agonies of mind 

 from the unexpected repletion. 



All the dwellers on our moor, in like 

 manner, are poor relations, so to speak, as 

 the donkey is to the horse. They are losers 

 in the struggle for life, yet not quite hope- 

 less losers ; creatures that have adapted 

 themselves to the worst positions, which 

 more favoured and successful races could 

 not endure for a moment. The naked 

 Fuegian picks up a living somehow among 

 snow and ice on barren rocks, where a well- 

 clad European would starve and freeze, 

 finding nothing to subsist upon. Just so 

 on the moor ; heather, furze, and bracken 

 eke out a precarious livelihood on the sandy 

 soil, where grasses and garden flowers die out 

 at once, unless we artificially enrich the earth 

 for them with leaf-mould from the bottoms 

 and good manure from the farmyards. 

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