34 Poachers and Poaching. 



pine bough. In the summer red creatures 

 that were bits of light gracefully glided among 

 green tassels, and the chatter of squirrels was 

 heard. The older trees attracted woodpeckers, 

 and the nuthatch threw out fine fibres of rotten 

 wood. Sometimes a pheasant or a partridge 

 would startle, getting up from its olive eggs by 

 a log left by the charcoal-burners. Thus rudely 

 disturbed, it had no time to scatter leaves over 

 its nest, as is its wont. The shaggy and corru- 

 gated bark of the old trees is larvae-haunted, 

 and consequently mouse-like creepers abound. 

 These little creatures on every trunk showed 

 conspicuously as they ran their marvellous 

 adaptation to an end, and fulfilled it perfectly. 

 All the wood-birds were there the White- 

 throat, the Wood and the Willow Wren, the Chiff- 

 chaff, and Garden-warbler. These sang from 

 the leafy boughs. But higher up, towards the 

 escarpment, the floor of the wood was rugged 

 and rock-strewn. Boulders had rolled from above, 

 and among these dwelt weasels and ermines. 

 There were at least a pair of martins, and 

 foxes from the fells had their tracks through 

 the woods. A primitive mansion had once stood 

 in the wood, but now was gone. It had been 

 large, and green mounds, now laid low, marked 

 out its dimensions. Old oak-panelling, with long- 

 gone dates, were sometimes dug up, and these 

 were covered with carvings "carvings quaint 



