118 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



blossom in the verdant days of June, chases where centuries have disturbed 



and poises its loose red berries above them little, are the oak and the beech, 



the vivid crimson of its thinning leaves, The scenery of the woodlands in which 



when the lapwings are flocking on these two great trees are mainly pre- 



the chalk down over the river-valley, dominant is of very different types. 



and the drawn sluices gush with Octo- There is a stubborn individuality about 



ber rain. There are certain other the growth of the oak which demands, 



willows, mainly of smaller and rarer if not actual isolation, at any rate free 



kinds, which love the peaty islets access of air and sun ; and thus it 



and the black alluvium of the fens ; comes about, that while an ancient 



but most of the better-known species beechwood is a deep home of unbroken, 



of this numerous and intricate tribe cavernous shadow, in a forest of oaks 



dislike to dip their feet in a slough, the sunlight is perpetually about us 



and prefer a soil sound and firm, and around, pouring in golden gulfs 



though close beside the water. In such between each massive monarch and 



a situation, the common glossy-leaved his neighbour, warming soft glades 



crack-willow will often increase to a and innumerable wandering alley-ways 



fine and free-growing tree, if it es- of knee-deep bracken, and intermin- 



capes the general fate of being pol- gling the age-old solemnity of the 



larded into Dutch conformity with Druid growths with the busy, fleeting 



an endless line of knob-headed neigh- life of plant, and animal, and bird, 



bours. One of the most riotous stains The bare, white heart-wood in the old 



of colour in the whole of the country oaks' upper timbers juts from their 



year is the banded glow of a culti- airy, sun-warmed domes like the horns 



vated osier-bed in late November, of the resting deer from the depths 



when each slim rod, nearly leafless, of the bracken below; large, tawny 



evenly changes upwards from green, butterflies flit and float in the sunshine 



through yellow, into tumultuous orange over wide sweeps of fern, or chase one 



and brillant crimson, like the rainbow's another, in upward flight, high athwart 



edge, above. the untrodden summits of the fronting 



The two chief forest trees of England, boughs. Everywhere is the sound, 



those strictly native species which green forest turf that lies like velvet 



may still be found growing in large beneath the fallen bearded limbs, and 



unmixed tracts in forests, parks, and the clean decay of innumerable crum- 



