278 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



to bones and feathers — was probably the harvest of a 

 year or more. The zealous keeper had no doubt ex- 

 hibited 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 feel- 

 ing 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, Collingbourne, Longleat, 

 Cranbourne 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 dis- 

 tricts 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 



