THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



monotonous because the trees are nearly all pines 

 and one tree is like another, and their tall, bare 

 trunks wall you in, and their dark stiff foliage 

 is like a roof above you. I, too, like being in a 

 pine wood, just as I like being by the sea, for a 

 few hours or a day, but for a place to live in I 

 should prefer a moor, a marsh, a sea-salting, or 

 any other empty, desolate place with a wide 

 prospect. 



In spite of this feeling I actually did spend a 

 great part of last summer in such a place. It is 

 an extensive tract, which when the excitement 

 and rush for the medicinal pines began, was first 

 seized upon by builders as being near London 

 and in a highly aristocratic neighbourhood. Im- 

 mediately, as by a miracle, large ornate houses 

 sprang up like painted agarics in the autumn 

 woods houses suitable for the occupation of im- 

 portant persons. The wood itself was left un- 

 touched ; the houses, standing a quarter of a mile 

 or more apart, with their gardens and lawns, were 

 like green, flowery oases scattered about in its 

 sombre wilderness. Gardens and lawns are a 

 great expense, the soil being a hungry sand, and 

 for all the manuring and watering the flowers 

 have a somewhat sad and sickly look, and the 

 lawns a poor thin turf, half grass and half moss. 



As a naturalist I was curious to observe the 

 effect of life in a pine wood on the inhabitants. 

 It struck me that it does not improve their health, 

 or make them happy, and that they suffer most in 



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