214 THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



willow-grouse (Lagopus albus\ which inhabits the northern regions 

 of Europe, Asia, and America. The warning cry of the male Kok, 

 kok, kok is one of the most characteristic sounds of the moors. 

 Both young and old feed on the tips of ling and heather shoots, 

 and on the leaves and fruit of the bilberry and similar moorland 

 plants. Among the other distinctive birds of this habitat we 

 may note the black-cock and grey-hen (male and female of 

 Tetrao tetrix), the golden plover and the peewit, the twite and 

 the stone-chat. It goes without saying that many birds which 

 frequent the moors in summer must be looked for elsewhere in 

 winter. Thus the familiar curlew (Numenius arquatus\ with its 

 pleasing but melancholy cry and conspicuously long curved bill, 



FIG. 117. The slow-worm (Anguis fragilis}. 



?<t leaves the lowlands in spring to breed upon the 

 moors and uplands. It leaves the coast, where it 

 has lived more or less gregarious through the 

 winter, in March or April, and the pairs scatter 

 themselves over their breeding-places. Up here, in 

 these vast solitudes, the expressive note of the 

 curlew is one of the most characteristic bird cries 

 a loud, clear, far-sounding and melodious Curlee, 

 curl-ee " (Dixon). 1 



Adder and Lizard. Here and there are heaps 

 of stones well sunned, and such a place one ap- 

 proaches cautiously on the outlook for an adder (see 

 Reptiles, vol. i. p. 112). Sometimes, especially when one is not 

 looking for it, one may see the reptile basking in the sun. It is 

 certainly not deaf, for it detects our quiet footsteps, and slips away 

 in a moment among the stones. In similar places we should look 

 for lizards and even slow-worms ; the grass-snake is an animal 

 rather of the meadow than the moor. Sometimes one has the 

 good fortune to find a snake's slough, rubbed off against the 



1 See (Dixon) p. 222. 



