To Mountain Tarn 



shooting has the greatest spell especially ptarmi- 

 gan-shooting in winter. 



It is our snow bird. Perhaps the only form 

 where the change is vital and likely to be lasting. 

 The variable hare may cease to vary ; the stoat 

 come to wear its weasel red all the year round. 

 Where conditions are milder both are reluctant to 

 lay aside their common wear. Ptarmigan will 

 scarcely change. It dwells on the summits. It 

 chooses the highest hills. Not far from the snow- 

 line these summits wear a cap of white, when the 

 grouse-belt is bare and the glen dark. And 

 somewhere in that cap of snow the ptarmigan 

 winters. 



Thus a thin white line runs up the hill fauna, 

 from base to summit. From the stoat, through 

 the variable hare, to the ptarmigan. These three 

 are children of the north, wear the livery of the 

 snow. They represent our waning Arctic life. 

 In two it is only a survival. No climate of ours 

 at their altitude would ever have exacted a winter 

 white. When they have followed in the wake of 

 the grouse, the ptarmigan alone will be left. 



On the summit is often a cairn or pile of loose 

 stones. Not as the moraine, dropped by the old- 

 time glacier, nor shed by the natural disintegra- 

 tion of the rocks. They are brought together 

 and heaped up by the labour of man. Often they 

 are meant as guides for those who are abroad on 

 the hills. 



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