To Mountain Tarn 



This movement must modify the wild life of 

 our coast ; to quite an appreciable extent, alter its 

 distribution. A single coast golf-course will dis- 

 turb the balance to its degree ; the combined 

 effect of many golf-courses is hard to estimate. 

 Where was a breeding place, and is one no 

 longer, the summer fauna must be altogether 

 different and infinitely poorer. The olden birds 

 which lived all the year round will be no more 

 seen. Visitors from the south time out of mind 

 will cast a glance from the wing and pass on. 

 Summer terns which splashed in the lit waters 

 will scream maledictions. Bright eider drake 

 and dark duck will find no place among the 

 trodden heather patches. 



Winter birds, which pass the short days on 

 the shingle and the sandbank, or feeding in the 

 weed-fringed pools of the rocks, may go in 

 summer and return in autumn. But that de- 

 pends on how far they have to go. After a while 

 they may find coasts as rich and sheltered, nearer 

 their nesting place. 



Of course, golf must go on. Were it the old 

 delightful game, and the players sportsmen, it is 

 well that it should go on. No one loves sport 

 more than I do. I love it well enough to wish 

 that it may not kill itself out, which, granting 

 rope, it seems bent on doing. All who frequent 

 the links know that it is not the old game, and 

 two-thirds of the new contingent of players are 

 L 145 



