CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 



PAGES 



Autumn in the New Forest Red colour in mammals 

 November mildness A bouse by the Boldre An ideal spot 

 for small birds Abundance of nests Small mammals and the 

 weasel's part Voles and mice Hornet and bank-vole Young 

 shrews A squirrel's visit Green woodpecker's drumming-tree 

 Drumming of other species Beauty of great spotted wood- 

 pecker The cuckoo controversy A cuckoo in a robin's nest 

 Behaviour of the cuckoo Extreme irritability Manner of 

 ejecting eggs and birds from the nest Loss of irritability 

 Insensibility of the parent robins Discourse on mistaken 

 kindness, pain and death in nature, the annual destruction of 

 bird life, and the young cuckoo's instinct . , . . 1-30 



CHAPTER II 



Between the Boldre and the Exe Abuse of the New Forest 

 Character of the population New Forest code and con- 

 science A radical change foreshadowed Tenacity of the 

 Forest fly Oak woods of Beaulieu Swallow and pike Charm 

 of Beaulieu Instinctive love of open spaces A fragrant heath 

 Nightjars Snipe Redshanks Peewits Cause of sympathy 

 with animals Grasshopper and spider A rapacious fly Melan- 

 choly moods Evening on the heath "World-strangeness" 

 Pixie mounds Death and burial The dead in the barrows 

 The dead and the living 31-56 



CHAPTER III 



A favourite New Forest haunt Summertide Young black- 

 bird's call Abundance of blackbirds and thrushes, and de- 

 struction of young Starlings breeding The good done by 



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