Forest 



creature, but this is not decisive; if there are no 

 physical signs, there is a feeling that the shadow is 

 not vacant. In the thickets, perhaps the shadowy 

 thickets with front of thorn it has taken refuge and 

 eluded us. Still onward the shadows lead us in vain 

 but pleasant chase. 



These endless trees are a city to the tree-building 

 birds. The round knot-holes in the beeches, the 

 holes in the elms and oaks ; they find them all out. 

 From these issue the immense flocks of starlings 

 which, when they alight on an isolated elm in winter, 

 make it suddenly black. From these, too, come 

 forth the tits, not so welcome to the farmer, as he 

 considers they reduce his fruit crop; and in these 

 the gaudy woodpeckers breed. With starlings, wood- 

 pigeons, and rooks the forest is crowded like a city 

 in spring, but now in autumn it is comparatively 

 deserted. The birds are away in the fields, some at 

 the grain, others watching the plough, and following 

 it so soon as a furrow is opened. But the stoats are 

 busy they have not left, nor the weasels; and so 

 eager are they that, though they hide in the fern at 

 first, in a minute or two they come out again, and 

 so get shot. 



Like the fields, which can only support a certain 

 proportion of cattle, the forest, wide as it seems, can 

 only maintain a certain number of deer. Carrying 

 the same thought further, it will be obvious that 

 the forest, or England in a natural state, could only 

 support a limited human population. Is this why 

 the inhabitants of countries like France, where they 

 cultivate every rood and try to really keep a man to 

 a rood, do not increase in number? Certainly there 

 is a limit in nature which can only be overcome by 

 artificial aid. After wandering for some time in a 

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