TART VII. PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. 423 



plants, as they are peculiarly fond of: as the mountain ash, 

 barberry, &c. for the thrush ; the ulex for the linnet; the plan- 

 tago, or polygonum, for the finch; the chervil, parsley, &c. as 

 well as low bushes, for the pheasant and partridge; and the 

 typha, iris, or phalaris, for the coot, wild duck, swan, or 

 goose. Other birds or quadrupeds, pernicious to these, should be 

 partially destroyed, as the magpie, hawk, squirrel, woodcat, &c. 



Moving objects in the country have always a cheerful, and 

 sometimes a grand effect. The shipping at Mount Edgecombe 

 and North Berwick add highly to the interest of both* those 

 places. Even fishing-boats in lakes, barges in canals, wag- 

 gons, carts, &c. have all their uses, and may all on occasion 

 be made subservient to picturesque improvement. The smoke 

 at Carron, when the sun by setting behind it throws a deep 

 shadow in the Firth, is often as truly sublime, as when in a dark 

 night its flames burst forth in spiral columns, and give the 

 sea and the sky a fiery aspect in the same moment. Cole- 

 brook Dale is more varied and interesting, and during night 

 more terrific; but from the want of accompaniments — of 

 mountains, plains, and sea, it is less sublime. But even the 

 smoke of cities and villages is of immense importance in real 

 as well as imitated landscape : it gives consequence to a scene 

 otherwise barren and uninteresting: even single cottages on 

 the grounds of a residence often, by the ascent of their curling 



