To Mountain Tarn 



Nor do the elevated moorlands, along the hill 

 slopes, any more offer a free nesting site for the 

 brooding birds ; whether by the prescriptive right 

 of long usage, or as a refuge from persecution else- 

 where. The ingenuity of the golfer is astonishing. 

 The complaisance of the proprietor is equally 

 great. No special care for the rarer species 

 seems to deter him, or is likely to do unless they 

 have sporting possibilities. 



Opposite the window where I write, is a long 

 ridge of upper old red sandstone, sufficiently steep 

 to make a stiff climb or a swift roll down. 

 Against its side, cattle cling, with ever and anon 

 their heads down to the grass. No ! they are 

 not cattle. I can just make out the figures of 

 little hill-scrambling men, as now they stoop to 

 tee, and anon follow their balls. These shallow 

 dumb wounds through the thin sprinkling of soil 

 are bunkers. The putting greens, like little niches 

 for images, are cut into the hillside, or sunk like 

 grassy bunkers below the level, so that the ball 

 which reaches them will stay. About it is an 

 element approaching the grotesque. No wonder 

 if the redshank, whose whistle used to come from 

 there, is now piping beside the lapwing on the 

 pasture. 



Not a single inland course that does not, in 

 some way, alter the wild life. In villages as is 

 so often the case where is only one rude stretch 

 the loss must be irreparable. All the rich variety 



149 



