WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 257 



thinner and farther apart ; they are mainly oaks, which 

 like to stand separate in their grandeur. There is 

 one dead oak all alone in the midst of the underwood, 

 with a wide space around it. A vast, gray trunk, split 

 and riven and hollow, with a single pointed branch 

 rising high above it, dead too, and gray : not a living 

 twig, not so much as a brown leaf, gives evidence of 

 lingering life. The oak is dead ; but even in his death 

 he rules, and the open space around him shows how 

 he once overshadowed and prevented the growth 

 of meaner trees. More oaks, then a broad belt of 

 beeches, and out suddenly into an opening. 



It is but a stone's throw across a level mead walled 

 in with tall trees, whose leaves in myriads lie on the 

 brown tinted grass. One great thicket only grows in 

 the midst of it. The nights are chilly here, as else- 

 where ; but in the day, the winds being kept off by 

 the trees and underwood, it becomes quite summer-like, 

 and the leaves turn to their most brilliant hues. The 

 stems of the bracken are yellow ; the fronds vary 

 from pale green and gold, commingled, to a reddish 

 bronze. The hawthorn leaves are slight yellow, some 

 touched with red, others almost black. Maple bushes 

 glow with gold. Here the beeches show great spots 

 of orange ; yonder the same tree, from the highest 

 branch to the lowest, has become a rich brown. Brown, 

 too, and buff are the oaks ; but the tints so shade into 

 each other that it is hard to separate and name them. 



It is not long before sounds and movements indicate 



that the forest around is instinct with life. Often it 



9 



