270 THE COVERTS 



inviting to migrants and birds of passage as they are 

 safe refuges for the natives. Of course the game must 

 reckon with the exigencies of the shooting season, but 

 that is in conformity with the inexorable laws of nature. 

 And game preserving presses hard on the beasts of 

 prey, and on some others that are unfairly classed as 

 vermin. But that only makes the covert a sanctuary 

 for almost everything harmless and ornamental. The 

 copses are melodious with joyous song in the spring, 

 and as full of animation in the more silent autumn. 

 We pity the man who cannot pass the time agreeably, 

 while kicking his heels at the cold corner of a lingering 

 beat, as the harbingers of the first hares and pheasants 

 pass in review before him, from the chattering jays and 

 clamorous jackdaws down to the screaming blackbird 

 and twittering willow-wren. 



It must be admitted that our British coverts hold 

 nothing more formidable than the fox, or possibly a 

 badger, for the wild cat and marten cat are well-nigh 

 extinct even in the most remote districts of the High- 

 lands. You have not the excitement of a wounded 

 lynx dropping on your shoulders from the pine boughs, 

 of being hugged by the unfriendly bear you have cor- 

 nered, or of startling a sounder of wild pig from their 

 siesta with the chance of being charged and ripped by 

 the old tusker. Nor do we know that that is greatly 

 to be regretted, as it would assuredly upset the ad- 

 mirable arrangements of the battue. Acclimatation of 

 ferocities has been tried and has failed. Gilbert White 

 tells us in one of his letters that General Howe, who 



