198 NATURAL HISTORY OF SUNNINGHILL. 



which in a very few years returns our bodies to their parent dust, even 

 with all the means that are so studiously taken in this enlightened age, 

 to preserve them, and surely how much more where a mere earthen vase 

 was their only receptacle. For a minute description of these antiquities 

 I refer the curious reader to a work called the "Nerva Britannica," which 

 was published some years since, especially devoted to illustrate and describe 

 these discoveries. Setting this aside, the remains of Roman encampments 

 which are still so obvious in all parts of England, are particularly percep- 

 tible here; and no one, on mounting any of the hills which command a 

 view of these evidences, can doubt for a moment that they are not the 

 effect of chance, or of any convulsion of nature, but that they were 

 formed by human art, and for military purposes: indeed this part is known 

 as "Caesar's Camp," and the road leading from it, as the "Old Roman Road," 

 and so marked in the maps. 



Most of the lower parts of these valleys are more or less marshy, and 

 contain some excellent snipe-grounds, a friend of mine, (now, poor fellow, 

 numbered with the dead,) having killed thirty-seven on one Michaelmas 

 Day, in a few hours; but he was a first-rate shot, and happened (as he 

 thought) to light upon a flock, inasmuch as the great proportion were 

 "Jacks." The nature of the soil varies a good deal here, but the change 

 is invariably marked by the different nature of the herbage. It may be 

 laid down, indeed, as a safe rule, that grass will scarcely ever grow on white 

 sand, or heath on loam. All the higher grounds are hence heathy, the 

 hills being generally composed of gravel; but there is a peculiarity in this 

 production, for whilst all the centre rising grounds and those to the 

 south supply the very best red gravel, those to the west and north-west 

 yield almost wholly circular pebbles, blue, white, and brown, and some of 

 a large size, mixed with sand, very much like those found at Budleich 

 and other places on the west coast. These are found to be extremely 

 well calculated for road-making, and are accordingly the chief ingredient. 



This soil is well suited to the Scotch Pine and Cluster Pine, which 

 may be said to grow almost indigenously, for there are many considerable 

 plantations having no other origin than the seeds wafted by the winds 

 from others hard by. There are also single ti-ees scattered over the whole 

 moor, and the greater part of the country, which, thirty years ago was 

 a bare common, is now covered with these trees, thereby altering the face 

 of the landscape. The most extensive plantations are those belonging to 

 government and the Bagshot Park estate, which extends for a great many 

 miles to the south-west and west, there being attached to the latter alone 

 ten thousand acres of this species of shrubbery. At Swinley Chase, before 

 mentioned, a paddock of deer is kept for the purpose of supplying the 

 Royal Hunt, whose establishment is situated upon Ascot Heath. These 



