To Mountain Tarn 



weight. On the note of alarm, two families bob 

 away as one. 



With an evener dip in their motion, and a 

 flight-note lower, sweeter, though not less charm- 

 ing in autumn the characteristic sounds are 

 flight-notes pass families of greenfinches. Next 

 to the linnet, they play the largest part in August 

 country life. They are even more numerous, and 

 more generally spread. They are more of a 

 dominant species. But, inasmuch as the play of 

 the greenfinch is less varied, as it moves about in 

 larger or smaller groups, and seldom sits alone to 

 sing, the linnet is more heard and felt in the 

 scene. 



From some convenient tree, the plebeian spar- 

 rows drop down on the uncut barley. If this, too, 

 is in a sense a Scottish cereal because of its sup- 

 posed popularity north of the Tweed, the nation 

 can have no objection to acknowledge the soft im- 

 peachment, and own it. Among grains, it is 

 second in grace to the oats alone. And it can 

 lend of its charm even to the sparrows, as they 

 swing on an elastic perch under the misty sweep 

 of awns. 



On level wing, a dozen or more starlings flit 

 from place to place, or run over the pasture with 

 inborn restlessness. The lapwings of all the 

 countryside have gathered together, and through 

 the afterglow and in the twilight, wheel in two 

 great flocks against the western sky. 



181 



