172 OUT OF DOOKb. 



lines. Our observations were repeated during several 

 successive evenings, and always with the same result. 



There is perhaps no locality in the whole of this 

 country so well adapted to the natural historian as the 

 New Forest, the conditions of soil, elevation, and 

 foliage being so prodigally varied that almost any 

 creature can find a refuge in some portion of its limits. 

 Take, for example, the spot on which we resided, but 

 which I do not intend to particularise, lest its sacred 

 recesses should be profaned by the step of outer bar- 

 barians, and its wild glades polluted by empty porter 

 bottles, broken crockery, and greasy sandwich papers. 



The cultivated ground in front of the house reached 

 a narrow and rapid brook. Beyond the brook was a 

 large expanse of marsh and shaking bog, harbouring 

 multitudes of snipes. In the middle of this swamp 

 our drumming observations were made. The ground 

 suddenly rose beyond this bog into a wide but not very 

 high hill, covered densely with heather, and giving 

 shelter to grouse and pheasants. About four miles 

 further the heath was abruptly ended by a large fir- 

 wood, in which the deer loved to couch. We once 

 devoted a whole morning to tracking a deer by its 

 footsteps or ' spoor,' and after some three hours' careful 

 chase found the creature lying couched among the 

 fern. Eavens were often seen heavily flapping their 

 way over the heather, and on one or two occasions our 

 eyes were gratified with the grand sweeping flight of 

 the buzzard, as it soared on steady wing, inclining from 



