278 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THROUGH FIRS AND HEATHER. 



WINTER has not left us for good and all, but there is 

 a change, that something so hard to explain in mere 

 words, that I may call life in the air. For many 

 years I have greeted and watched the first signs 

 of this fresh life, and their effect on our wild crea- 

 tures and their haunts. I have already written about 

 the Surrey Hills, at least of a great part of them. 

 Holmbury, and as far as Hindhead, my readers have 

 explored with me. Beyond this region there is a 

 wilder country, a vast hollow flat, that lies between 

 and at the back of the hills, which is the borderland 

 of three counties, Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire. 

 A land of stunted firs and stunted heather it is, and 

 of silver sand and bogs, a barren, hungry district, 



