on their various avocations. The labour involved in the construction of these nests must be enormous. Many of them are old and abandoned; and over these the bilberry and cranberry bushes-which are ever pushing forward their roots on new soil-spread themselves, so that they are half or wholly covered with a luxuriant ever-green vegetation, indicating their origin only by the undulations they make in the ground. A great deal of the variety of landscape that breaks up the monotony of the fir-forest is thus owing to the labours of the ant.

There is no wood more durable than the timber of an old Scotch fir. It is proof, owing to its aromatic odour, against insect ravages; and its texture is so hard and compact that it resists the decay of the weather. I have seen pieces of window-framing made of the fir of the Black Wood of Rannock, taken out of a ruined castle more than four hundred years old, as firm and solid as it was when first put in. It would be difficult to press the point of a knife into its unyielding tissue. So charged with turpentine are the firs of this celebrated primeval forest, that splinters of the wood used to be employed as candles to light up the dark nights when the people gathered together in some neighbour's cottage to ply their spinning-wheels and retail their gossip and old stories. These wood-torches, when set in sconces, would burn down to the socket with an unwavering and brilliant flame, and would thus give forth a sufficient amount of light and heat at the same time. During last summer at Aviemore, the dark, cold, cheerless days were brightened for us by splendid fires made of old roots left in the ground when the patriachal trees had been cut down, and which contained a vast quantity of resin. I know no fires so delightful, not even those of the pine-branches and cones of the Valombrosa forest in Italy, blazing up

at once, and continuing to the end clear and bright, while emitting a most pleasant fragrance filling all the room, and creating a most healthy atmosphere, which counteracts the noxious influence of the continual rain and damp. Owing to the northern aspect of the Rothiemurchus forest, and the coldness of the climate caused by the huge masses of lofty mountains, covered in some parts with perpetual snow, the firs are unusually full of turpentine, and are of very superior quality. And as this forest, unlike almost any other, has the power of perpetuating itself without being planted, a constant succession of trees springs up when the old are cut down. The trees do not grow very rapidly, but they are good in proportion to the slowness of their growth; the part of the wood which is exposed to the sunshine being little more than sap-wood of small value, while that part which is turned to the north and grows in cold situations and takes long to mature, is hard and solid and very valuable. It is of a fine red colour, and when cut directly to the centre or right across the grain is very beautiful; the little stripes formed by the annual layers being small and delicate and in perfectly even lines. The best part is nearest the root. It is admirably adapted for ornamental furniture, and for the breasts of violins and the sounding-boards of other musical instruments.

For the sake of these utilitarian advantages, as well as for the sake of its own picturesqueness, the Scotch fir ought to be cultivated more extensively than it is in this country, its own original home. There are many extensive upland and heathy tracts, which can scarcely be turned to any other purpose, which might be redeemed and vastly improved in every way by being planted with this tree; and there are knolls and rocky heights, at

present tame and uninteresting-looking, that would add most romantic features to the landscape were a clump of firs to crown them with its rugged grandeur. In this way shelter would be provided to patches of land that are capable of being cultivated; the leaves, too, as they fell off, would destroy the heath and other hard plants, and pave the way for mosses and grasses, which in turn could be ploughed into the soil, and make it susceptible of bearing crops of grain or of green vegetables. The thinnings of the trees would be well adapted for fuel, for palings, and many other domestic purposes; while the timber at last, after paying all its expenses, by the repeated thinnings, would furnish a better rent than could be obtained by any other means.

HUGH MACMILLAN.

CHAPTER IX.

SOME OF THE POETS ON THE COUNTRY.

BY CONSTANCE L. MAYNARD,

Moral Sciences Tripos, Girton College, Cambridge; Mistress of Westfield College, Hampstead.

THERE are among men two kinds of character. The one, bent on progress and invention, seeks the society of his fellow men in towns, and there works amid the encouragements or the hindrances of a crowd; while the other, bent on the expansion, the smoothness, and the independence of life that can only come from comparative solitude, seeks the country. Those who have apparently most directly influenced mankind, the statesman, the politician, the journalist, the man who seeks in any direction after fame or wealth, have belonged to the first class. Impatient of a life limited in circle of action, however wide in scope of thought, they have by irresistible attraction been drawn toward the centres of busy human work, where man reacts on man in quick succession, and where the co-operation of many minds holds out a vague though brilliant promise of future possibilities.

"Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men ;

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new;
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.
Not in vain the distance beacons! Forward, forward, let us range;
Let the great world spin for ever, down the ringing grooves of change.”*

Far different from this is the mind of the poet and the artist, the mind of the meditative and the devout. These seek to shut the door on stir and noise and crowd, on the flutter and change of opinion, on the inconsequent and superficial remarks of folly and ignorance, and on the opposition of envy or prejudice; escaping from all these they lead a life of simpler material, and of freer and more uncriticised range. Such are the finer and nobler spirits of the world, and in the long run their influence balances, if it does not exceed, their more energetic and restless compeers.

Poets there always have been, as far back as the eye can see into the mists of ancient days, and poets there are in civilised, and in semi-civilised, and even in barbarous races all the world over. In early days and in savage tribes their chief office was to sing heroic achievements, but when this primitive stage is past, and life becomes more complex, they almost one and all stand on the side of the country rather than the town. Dramatically they may throw themselves into the race of life, and sing of toil and endeavour, and hurrying crowds, but personally we can scarcely find one who does not love to withdraw and to watch the scenes from afar in some quiet region where observation is the keener, and positive action is not needed. The opinion of a class of men whose self-interest is low,