36 Among the Birds in Northern Shires. 



ling the hollows and drifting into fantastic wreaths. 

 We retain vivid memories (supplemented with 

 copious notes) of the constantly changing aspects 

 of bird-life upon them. Farther afield we are well 

 familiar with some of the wildest and grandest of 

 the Highland heaths. Monotonous as these vast 

 wastes may seem, relieved by little or no sylvan 

 variety, a detailed examination will not fail to reveal 

 that the impression gained by a casual scrutiny is an 

 erroneous one. The configuration of their surface 

 is subject to as much diversity as more pastoral or 

 arboreal country. We find lofty eminences, spacious 

 valleys, rolling billowy tracts, extensive plains, hills, 

 and dales all for the most part devoid of timber, 

 yet presenting considerable variety in the vegetation 

 according to the nature of the soil. The heather 

 (of various kinds) is of course the one predominat- 

 ing shrub, but mingled amongst it are more or less 

 extensive tracts of bilberry and kindred plants, of 

 bracken, bramble, briar, and a host of others, the 

 botanical names of which we need not stay here to 

 specify. This is upon the drier ground; where 

 marshy conditions prevail we find grasses of various 

 kinds, rushes, large patches of sphagnum, variegated 

 here and there with sundew and clumps of bell- 

 heather, the latter easily identified by its large pale- 

 pink blooms. Here and there the monotony of the 

 moors is relieved by lofty crags and ridges of mill- 



