272 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



of a year or more. The zealous keeper had no doubt 

 exhibited these trophies to the noble sportsman, his 

 master, who probably rejoiced at the sight, though 

 knowing that the kestrel is a protected species. This 

 grove, its central tree decorated after the manner 

 of a modern woman with wings and carcasses of birds 

 and heads and tails of little beasts, was like a small 

 transcript of any one of those vast woods and forests 

 in which I had spent so many days in this same 

 downland district. The curse and degradation were 

 on it, and from that time the sight of it was unpleasant, 

 even when so far removed as to appear nothing but 

 a blue cloud-like mound, no bigger than a man's 

 hand, on the horizon. 



There is something wanting in all these same great 

 woods I have spoken of which spoils them for me 

 and in some measure, perhaps, for those who have 

 any feeling for Nature's wildness in them. It has 

 been to me like an oppression during my rambles, 

 year after year, in such woods as Savernake, Colling- 

 bourne, Longleat, Cranborne Chase, Fonthill, Great 

 Ridge Wood, Bentley and Groveley Woods — all 

 within or on the borders of the Wiltshire down country. 

 This feeling or sense of something wanting is stronger 

 still in districts where there are higher and rougher 

 hills, a larger landscape, and a wilder nature, as in 

 the Quantocks — in the great wooded slopes and 

 summits above Over Stowey, for example; the loss, 

 in fact, is everywhere in all woodland and incult 

 places, but I need not go away from these Wiltshire 

 woods already named. They are great enough, one 



