3 8 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



the latter does, and may possibly have been used as a 

 covered way, though now much obliterated and too 

 shallow for the purpose. The rampart itself is in 

 almost perfect preservation ; in one spot the soil has 

 slightly slipped, but form and outline are everywhere 

 distinct. 



In endeavouring, however, for a moment to glance 

 back into the unwritten past, and to reconstruct the 

 conditions of some fourteen or fifteen centuries since, 

 it must not be forgotten that the downs may then 

 have presented a different appearance. There is a 

 tradition lingering still that they were in the olden times 

 almost covered with wood. I have tried to fix this 

 tradition to focus it and give it definite shape ; but 

 like a mist visible from a distance, yet unseen when 

 you are actually in it, it refuses to be grasped. Still, 

 there it is. The old people say that the king they 

 have no idea which king could follow the chase for 

 some forty miles across these hills, through a succes- 

 sion of copses, woods, and straggling covers, forming a 

 great forest. To look now from the top of the ram- 

 part over the rolling hills, the idea is difficult to admit 

 at first. They are apparently bare, huge billowy 

 swells of green, with wide hollows cultivated on the 

 lower levels, but open and unenclosed for mile after 

 mile, almost without hedges, and seemingly treeless, 

 save for the gnarled and stunted hawthorns appar- 

 ently a bare expanse ; but more minute acquaintance 

 leads to different conclusions. 



Here, to begin with, on the same ridge as the earth- 



