158 August Heathw 



some kindred shade of purple, mauve, or lilac ; 

 but none of them can equal the purple heather 

 for that vehement richness of colour which seems 

 as if poured from the heated veins of the August 

 earth. It is a colour which transfigures all weaker 

 elements in the landscape, and can strike amazing 

 chords. One such magnificent combination, seen 

 often in the west and north, is where the lips of 

 a moorland valley frame a wedge of yellow sand- 

 hills and blue sea. But nowhere is the contrast 

 of colour more triumphantly daring than about 

 Hindhead and Blackdown and other sandy ranges 

 of Southern England, where the purple slopes are 

 scored and banded with a vehement ochre. Else- 

 where the more permanent elements in the landscape 

 show up the heather's splendour by a contrast 

 of softer tones. Such is the effect of the pale- 

 grey terraces of limestone that bear up long fields 

 of heather in the Cumberland moors ; and even 

 among the flagrant landscapes of the Hampshire 

 and Surrey heaths, the pits that scar the purple 

 hill-tops are here and there of white or silver sand. 

 The investigations of the Committee of Inquiry 

 into Grouse Disease have shown that grouse depend 

 upon the ling for food to a much greater extent 

 than was suspected by many people well acquainted 

 with them. In August ling was found to provide 

 60 per cent, of their food ; and from that time on 

 the proportion of its shoots, blossoms, and seeds 

 increases month by month. The diet of black 

 game is a good deal more varied, as might be 

 expected from their considerably wider distribution 



