The Open Air 



forest like this, the impression arises that the fauna 

 is not now large enough to be in thorough keeping 

 with the trees their age and size and number. The 

 breadth of the arboreal landscape requires a longer 

 list of living creatures, and creatures of greater bulk. 

 The stoat and weasel are lost in bramble and fern, 

 the squirrels in the branches; the fox is concealed, 

 and the badger; the rabbit, too, is small. There are 

 only the deer, and there is a wide gap between them 

 and the hares. Even the few cattle which are per- 

 mitted to graze are better than nothing; though not 

 wild, yet standing in fern to their shoulders and 

 browsing on the lower branches, they are, at all 

 events, animals for the time in nearly a natural 

 state. By watching them it is apparent how well the 

 original wild cattle agreed with the original scenery 

 of the island. One almost regrets the marten and 

 polecat, though both small creatures, and wishes that 

 the fox would come forth more by day. These acres 

 of bracken and impenetrable thickets need more 

 inhabitants; how well they are fitted for the wild 

 boar! Such thoughts are, of course, only thoughts, 

 and we must be thankful that we have as many wild 

 creatures left as we have. 



Looking at the soil as we walk, where it is exposed 

 by the roots of a fallen tree, or where there is an 

 old gravel pit, the question occurs whether forests, 

 managed as they are in old countries, ever really 

 increase the fertility of the earth? That decaying 

 vegetation produces a fine mould cannot be disputed ; 

 but it seems here that there is no more decaying 

 vegetation than is required for the support of the trees 

 themselves. The leaves that fall the million million 

 leaves blown to and fro, at last disappear, absorbed 

 into the ground. So with quantities of the lesser 



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