WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 259 



through the air the tail extends behind and droops so 

 that he seems to form an arch. After working along 

 ten or fifteen yards in one direction, he stops, turns 

 sharp round, and comes all the way back again. 

 Some distance farther, under the trees, two more are 

 frisking about, and a rabbit has come to nibble the 

 grass in the open. 



Looking across to the other side, where the fern 

 recommences, surely there was a movement as if a 

 branch was shaken ; and a branch that, on second 

 thought, is in such a position that it cannot be con- 

 nected with any tree. Again, and then the head and 

 neck of a stag are lifted above the fern. He is attacking 

 a tree rubbing his antlers against a low branch, much 

 as if he were fighting it. He is not a hundred yards 

 off ; it would be easy to get nearer, surely, by stalking 

 him carefully, gliding from tree -trunk to tree- trunk 

 under the beeches. 



At the first step the squirrel darts to the nearest 

 beech ; and although it seems to have no boughs or 

 projections low down, he is up it in a moment, going 

 round the trunk in a spiral. A startling clatter re- 

 sounds overhead : it is a wood-pigeon that had come 

 quietly and settled on a tree close by, without being 

 noticed, and now rises in great alarm. But it is a 

 sound to which the deer are so accustomed that they 

 take no notice. There is little underwood here be- 

 neath the beeches, but the beech-mast lies thick, and 

 there are dead branches, which if stepped on will 

 crack loudly. 



