GAME-COVERTS 161 



pastures new, without another thought 

 of home. 



His desires, then, run to a warm and 

 sheltered wood where the sun shines ; a 

 wood of some size, watered by stream or 

 pond, with open spaces to let in light and 

 air, thick undercover, abundance of natural 

 food both animal and vegetable, and good 

 branches — that is, easy of access and set at a 

 convenient angle to the tree — to roost in. 



While he vastly prefers a warm, dry 

 soil to heavy wet clay land, at the same 

 time he will thrive in alder-grown swamps 

 and osier beds, for both of which, as 

 indeed for all overgrown wet places, he 

 often shows a marked partiality, even 

 with apparently more favourable woods 

 near by — a partiality not easy to under- 

 stand, unless we credit the race with old- 

 standing memories of the tamarisk swamps 

 and reed -grown flats of their ancestral 

 rivers. At all times he dislikes woods 

 that are bare, cold, draughty, or gloomy, 

 and trees or shrubs that give a heavy drip 

 in wet weather. 



11 



