THE NEW FOREST CONSCIENCE $3 



Those who have inherited rights have indeed come 

 to look on the Forest as in a sense their property. 

 What is given or handed over to them is not in their 

 view their proper share : they take this openly, and get 

 the balance the best way they can in the dark gener- 

 ally. It is not dishonest to help yourself to what be- 

 longs to you ; and they must live must have their 

 whack. They have, in fact, their own moral code, their 

 New Forest conscience, just as other men miners, 

 labourers on the land, tradesmen, gamekeepers, mem- 

 bers of the Stock Exchange, for instance have each 

 their corporate code and conscience. It may not be 

 the general or the ideal or speculative conscience, but 

 it is what may be called their working conscience. One 

 proof that much goes on in the dark, or that much is 

 winked at, is the paucity of all wild life which is worth 

 any man's while to take in a district where pretty well 

 everything is protected on paper. Game, furred and 

 feathered, would not exist at all but for the private 

 estates scattered through the Forest, in which game is 

 preserved, and from which the depleted Forest lands are 

 constantly being restocked. Again, in all this most 

 favourable country no rare or beautiful species may be 

 found: it would be safer for the hobby, the golden 

 oriole, the hoopoe, the harrier, to nest in a metropolitan 

 park than in the loneliest wood between the Avon and 

 Southampton Water. To introduce any new species, 

 from the biggest the capercailzie and the great bustard 

 to the smallest quail, or any small passerine bird with 



