io Some Aspects of Plant- Life. [Sess. 



On upland moors one often comes across quiet little tarns. 

 These are not uncommonly undergoing a process of gradual 

 drying up. The vegetation creeps in from the shore, and in 

 course of time the loch, if shallow, must dry up and disappear. 

 Some of these mountain lochs are very beautiful, — beautiful 

 in calm or storm, by day or by night. Who has not heard of 

 the fairy loughs of Ireland ? — 



" Loughareema, Loughareema lies so high among the heather, 

 A little lough, a dark lough, the wather's black an' deep ; 

 Ould herons go a-fishin' there, an' seagulls altogether 



Float round the one green island on the fairy lough asleep." 



One of the greatest of our Scottish classical teachers thought 

 that the fable of Acteon surprising Diana and her nymphs 

 might well have arisen from some hunter suddenly coming on 

 such a secluded tarn in whose quiet deep-blue depths were 

 mirrored " meek Dian's crest " and the silvery stars around 

 her. 



Between the valleys and the hill-tops one finds in many 

 parts of Scotland well-marked zones of vegetation. Willows, 

 alders, and other deciduous trees fringe the streams ; higher 

 up flourish birch woods ; above these conifers, dwarf birch, 

 and oak scrub, with heather and moss ; but the carpet of 

 vegetation is practically continuous, save where the moorland 

 rises into the loftier mountain-summits. Hardy conifers hold 

 their own even among the snow. True, they are rather a 

 sorry-looking community, hard-bitten and ill-nourished, but 

 there are few places on the earth's surface where some form 

 of plant-life cannot find a footing. 



On the upper slopes of the New Zealand Alps one finds 

 those strange tussock formations called " vegetable sheep," 

 with their surface branches and leaves forming a close, woolly- 

 like protection to the plant ; and on our own rocky mountain- 

 tops we find grey and orange and yellow lichens spreading 

 over rocks and stones. 



With the moorlands of our own country we might compare 

 the cactus-grown desert regions of South America, the S. United 

 States, and other parts of the tropics, or the bush-veldt and 

 karoos of South Africa, with their " wait-a-bit " thorns and 

 heaths, their tussock formations and plants, with thick- 



