94 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



as the foreign evergreens, so costly to rear and so sure 

 to be killed by the first old-fashioned frost. 



The thrushes are singularly fond of the yew berry ; 

 it is of a sticky substance, sweet and not unpleasant. 

 Holly berries, too, are eaten ; and holly hedges, despite 

 their prickly leaves, are favourites with garden birds. 

 It would be possible, I think, to so plan out a garden 

 as to attract almost every feathered creature. 



A fine old filbert walk extends far away towards the 

 orchard ; the branches meet overhead. In autumn 

 the fruit hangs thick ; and what is more exquisite, 

 when gathered from the bough and eaten, as all fruit 

 should be, on the spot ? I cannot understand why 

 filbert walks are not planted by our modern capitalists, 

 who make nothing of spending a thousand pounds in 

 forcing-houses. I cannot help thinking that true 

 taste consists in the selection of what is thoroughly 

 characteristic of soil and climate. Those magnificent 

 yew hedges, the filbert walk all, in fact, are to be 

 levelled to make way for a garish stucco-fronted 

 hunting-box, with staring red stables and every modern 

 convenience. The sun-dial shaft is already heaved up 

 and broken. 



The old mansion was used as a grammar school for 

 a great many years, but has been deserted for the last 

 quarter of a century ; and melancholy indeed are 

 the silent hollow halls and dormitories. The white- 

 washed walls are yellow and green from damp, and 

 covered in patches with saltpetre efflorescence ; but 

 they still bear the hasty inscriptions scrawled on them 



