146 
NATURE NOTES 
range, yet, as has been said, where the spade comes the wheat- 
ear vanishes. And from the dingles which run down the hill- 
side we should hear, if it were spring, the loud and yet sweet 
song of the ring-ousel with the golden bill and the white crescent 
on its breast ; but it is August, and the harsh blackbird-like 
call-note takes the place of the song. But perhaps the most 
frequent bird on the mountain is the cheerful little meadow 
pipit. It seems to rejoice as much in the still heat of a summer 
afternoon, when the hot air dances above the heather, as in the 
fierceness of a winter storm, which it braves with a joyousness 
all its own. 
No merlin has ever gladdened the eyes of the writer or 
saddened the heart of the keeper on this moor, but once a happy 
wight found one of their nests under the heather. But the 
sweet plaintive notes of the golden plover may be heard here 
from April to October on the wilder mountain tops, where there 
is no lack of the moisture which they love ; and they, with the 
red grouse — that exclusive glory of the British bird list — may 
fitly close our recollections of the birds of this English grouse 
moor. 
As we come down the mountain lane in the summer sunlight 
we are reminded that even August is not destitute of bird music. 
For a solitary wren is singing its bright little lyric from the deep, 
rocky hedge-bank, and a robin’s pensive warble, so redolent of 
chill November damps, come to us from the hazel tree which 
is making a grateful shade across the green lane. 
C. Trollope. 
IN A DEVONSHIRE LANE.* 
TURN from the hot and dust}^ high road into a cool 
and shady lane. The red banks rise high on either 
side, clothed as only Devonshire can clothe them. 
Matted ivy clings close to them, its dark leaves con- 
trasting with the vivid green of the moss. Those delicious, 
damp, yielding cushions of moss are mysterious forests through 
which countless little beings wend their way. I like to draw 
aside the fronds, making a narrow track through them, and then 
to stay quiet and watch all the odd travellers that cross this 
path. Funny little snails pass, feeling their way knowingly with 
their houses wobbling on their backs ; spiders making good use 
of their eight legs and looking so important ; ants, rushing out 
into the open, stop surprised and look all round, hastily nodding 
* The writer of this paper is still in her teens. She possesses the double 
faculty of observing keenly and of describing vividly what she observes. She is 
a daughter of Mrs. Francis Blundell, who, as “ M. E. Fiancis,” has published 
A Daughter of the Soil, In a North Country Village, The Duenna of a Genius, 
and many other pure and pleasant novels, the latest being Yeoman Fleetwood. 
