2 HAMPSHIKE DAYS 



this lower southern part of the New Forest still in 

 their full autumnal foliage. Even now, so late in the 

 year, after many successive days and nights of rain 

 and wind, they are in leaf still: everywhere the woods 

 are yellow, here where the oak predominates ; the 

 stronger golden red and russet tints of the beech are 

 vanished. We have rain and wind on most days, or 

 rather mist and rain by day and wind with storms 

 of rain by night ; days, too, or parts of days, when it 

 is very dark and still, and when there is a universal 

 greyness in earth and sky. At such times, seen against 

 the distant slaty darkness or in the blue-grey misty 

 atmosphere, the yellow woods look almost more beauti- 

 ful than in fine weather. 



The wet woodland roads and paths are everywhere 

 strewn, and in places buried deep in fallen leaves 

 yellow, red, and russet ; and this colour is continued 

 under the trees all through the woods, where the dead 

 bracken has now taken that deep tint which it will 

 keep so long as there is rain or mist to wet it for 

 the next four or five months. Dead bracken with 

 dead leaves on a reddish soil; and where the woods 

 are fir, the ground is carpeted with lately-fallen needles 

 of a chestnut red, which brightens almost to orange 

 in the rain. Now, at this season, in this universal 

 redness of the earth where trees and bracken grow, 

 we see that Nature is justified in having given that 

 colour red and reddish-yellow to all or to most of 

 her woodland mammals. Fox and foumart and weasel 



