280 Poachers and Poaching. 



brought several others with it of younger growth, 

 and he had just finished clearing to obtain a 

 space wherein to work. Black bryony berries 

 were twined about the lower branches, as were 

 the dead leaves of honeysuckle. These are 

 among the natural enemies of the old man, as 

 he considers them injurious to timber. His 

 woods are wide, and constitute his little world. 

 There is little in or of them which he does not 

 know, even to the flowers and birds. For 

 these he has quaint provincial names of his 

 own. Thus he speaks of the fallowchat, the 

 nettle-creeper, and the reed-wren meaning 

 the wheatear, white-throat, and reed-warbler. 

 The frail anemone he knows as the wind- 

 flower, coltsfoot is one of his rustic remedies 

 for coughs, and the early purple orchids are 

 to him " crow's feet." His " little red mouse 

 that rustles among the dead leaves and is 

 coloured like a hare" is our wood-mouse ; and 

 sometimes he finds among the hazel branches 

 the ball-like nests of the dormice. He knows 

 that wherever fungi grows there is death, and 

 the tree lighted up by the brightly-coloured 

 bosses he marks with a red cross, which is as 

 signing the warrant of its doom. He follows the 

 yaffle, and wherever it pecks the trees he knows 

 that decay has begun within. This applies to all 

 the woodpeckers, who are infallible valuers of 



