To Mountain Tarn 



largesse of the parvenu. But it is correspondingly 

 ugly that other birds should be denied a like 

 privilege. It is one of the tricks played by " man, 

 proud man, dressed in a little brief authority." 



So men blighted this new playground in a 

 rather sombre world, and having found a pleasant 

 plaything therein, proceeded to kill out all that 

 made it pleasant. Of the living forms, many of 

 them strikingly beautiful, all intensely interesting, 

 they preserved but one. It is as though an Alpine 

 were chosen out from the glorious Alpines of our 

 hills, and all the others were rooted up, lest they 

 interfered with its spread. This is not a matter 

 for curious naturalists, with their mild enthusiasm 

 and inconsistent ways ; who may be pushed aside. 



I can recall a student in Edinburgh, son of a 

 Highland chief, who boasted, rightly or wrongly, 

 that he alone in the university was privileged to 

 wear an eagle's plume. It were another of life's 

 little ironies, if over the ancestral moor the eagle 

 were slaughtered. One sometimes wonders if 

 those whose pride it is to be known by the name 

 of the cat grudge it a share of the spoil, and 

 lease the rough woods and braes to its destroyer. 

 Hear the cry of outraged sentiment : " Is there 

 one mountain-born son of Alp who does not agree 

 with me in preferring our unspoiled glens, our 

 wild game, and our national distinctions ? " 



Highlanders may have forgotten all that made 

 them and theirs picturesque and uncommon, and 



53 



