220 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



scarcer in the British Isles. For example, the beautiful 

 lady's-slipper, by far the most striking of all northern 

 orchids, was once found in several parts of this country ; 

 but it now lingers only near Settle, in Yorkshire, and on 

 a single estate in Durham, where it is as carefully pre- 

 served by the owner as if it were pheasants or fallow 

 deer. The same thing is true of many other rare British 

 plants, and others, which once occupied a few scattered 

 mountain-tops, have already altogether disappeared. 

 Their retrogression can hardly be set down to the spread 

 of cultivation, for man has done little or nothing as yet 

 to interfere with crest of Ben Lomond or of Scawfell ; we 

 must rather account for it by the gradual secular mitigation 

 of the seasons and the slow retreat of the Alpine types be- 

 fore the triumphant march of the central European flora. 

 On the other hand, the mass of the Scotch highlands 

 is still occupied by a whole flourishing flora of glacial 

 plants, which will require many ages yet before they are 

 finally driven out by the intrusive phalanx of Germanic 

 species. Indeed, to this day it is not too much to say 

 that while the general aspect of vegetation in Devonshire 

 and Cornwall, or in the Killarney district, is now Spanish 

 or Portuguese, and while the general aspect in Norfolk 

 and Suffolk is Germcm, the general aspect in the Perth- 

 shire hills is arctic or Alpine. The most northern and 

 most glacial forms are to be found only on a few scat- 

 tered peaks ; but the slopes and the straths are still 

 richly clothed with more vigorous sub-arctic types ; with 

 winter-greens and bear-berries ; Alpine bartsia and 

 Alpine veronica ; the snowy gentian and the arctic 

 butterwort. Indeed, in a land of ptarmigans and white 

 hares v/e may say that the glacial epoch in its final phase 

 continues among us even yet. 



