HEATHLANDS. 121 



always the most advantageous. Birds which have 

 been fed freely on these eggs become fastidious and 

 do not care for much else, so that if the supply fails 

 they fall off in condition. If there are sufficient eggs 

 to last the season then a few every day produce the 

 best effect; if not they had better not have a feast 

 followed by a fast. 



The sense of having a roof overhead is felt in 

 walking through a forest of firs like this, because the 

 branches are all at the top of the trunks. The stems 

 rise to the same height, and then the dark foliage 

 spreading forms a roof. As they are not very near 

 together the eye can see some distance between them, 

 and as there is hardly any underwood or bushes 

 nothing higher than the fern there is a space open 

 and unfilled between the ground and the roof so far 

 above. 



A vast hollow extends on every side, nor is it broken 

 by the flitting of birds or the rush of animals among 

 the fern. The sudden note of a wood-pigeon, hoarse 

 and deep, calling from a fir top, sounds still louder 

 and ruder in the spacious echoing vault beneath, so 

 loud as at first to resemble the baying of a hound. 

 The call ceases, and another of these watch-dogs of 

 the woods takes it up afar off. 



There is an opening in the monotonous firs by 

 some rising ground, and the sunshine falls on young 

 Spanish chestnuts and underwood, through which is 

 a little used foot-path. If firs are planted in wilder- 

 nesses with the view of ultimately covering the barren 

 soil with fertile earth, formed by the decay of vege- 

 table matter, it is, perhaps, open to discussion as to 



