90 FOEEST BAUBLES. [Dec, 



not standing far apart like the grand Oaks wliicli are the pride of our 

 English forests and parks, these Beeches have huge butts, and the 

 trunks of many of them run up to a considerable altitude before 

 developing branches. T do not think that I over-estimate the height 

 of the finest specimens in placing it at one hundred and thirty feet. 

 They are very fully f oliaged, and the largest of them have an enormous 

 spread of ])ranches, covering an area but little smaller than that over- 

 shadowed by one of our finest English Oaks. Their foliage gives 

 signs of autumn frosts and gales, and its various tints of light green 

 and gold are exquisitely beautiful as the sunshine filters down 

 between the leaves. Passing through a splendid gi'ove of Beeches for 

 a quarter of a mile, we come upon a small forest of Scotch Firs, 

 diversifying the landscape with their tall ruddy trunks and sombre 

 black-green needles high up against the blue. Beneath their shade 

 there is no undergrowth, and the scanty turf presents an uniformly 

 brown appearance owing to the thick carpet of fallen needles. But 

 the forest generally is somewhat bare of undergrowth or scrub, 

 though the bracken grows knee-high in broad tracts here and there. 

 Autumn is not the time for flowers, and the purple blossoms of the 

 scabius alone meet our eyes, whilst of ferns we notice but two or three 

 common varieties. 



Emerging from dense forest, open glades of thick turf are before 

 us, and scattered about, both in clumps and as solitary trees, are 

 many fine Oaks, and some particularly large Thorns, literally crimson 

 with haws. To the eastward the ground slopes away to the Baltic, 

 and here the Thorn trees are especially numerous, the gnarled and 

 twisted trunks of many of them — in several instances appearing to 

 be from eight to ten feet in circumference — testifying to their great 

 age, whilst from thirty to forty feet would seem to be no unusual 

 altitude. Diversifying these glades are belts and masses of thick 

 forest such as ] have already described, extending in places over 

 several hundred acres — the russet of the Oaks and Chestnuts, the gold 

 of the Beeches and Birches, and the sombre green of the Pines and 

 Firs filling the hollows and swelling up over the hills in bold sweeps 

 of colour, intensified here and there by the crimson foliage of the Wild 

 Cherry and the vermilion of some heavily-fruited Kowan. The grey- 

 green herbage of almost every dell — for it shows traces only too plain 

 of early frosts — is dotted over with red and fallow deer in large herds, 

 the total number of head in the Pioyal forest amounting to several 

 thousand. One splendid stag, standing motionless on a ridge in the 

 woodland, his grand symmetry and towering antlers clearly cut 

 against the sky, especially rivets my gaze. He is intently looking 

 seaward at an angle to my position, and apparently did not sight me 

 as I gained the summit of the adjoining hill. I watch him for 



