AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK. 303 



store now. Sketches remain in old country-houses 

 of the chase of the marten ; you see the hounds all 

 yelping round the foot of a tree, the marten up in it, 

 and in the middle of the hounds the huntsman in top- 

 boots and breeches. You can but smile at it. To 

 Americans it must forcibly recall the treeing of a 'coon. 

 The deer need keep no watch, there are no wolves to 

 pull them down ; and it is quite probable that the 

 absence of any danger of that kind is the reason of 

 their tameness even more than the fact that they are 

 not chased by man. Nothing comes creeping stealthily 

 through the fern, or hunts them through the night 

 They can slumber in peace. There is no larger beast 

 of prey than a stoat, or a stray cat. But they retain 

 their dislike of dogs, a dislike shared by cattle, as if 

 they too dimly remembered a time when the}' had been 

 hunted. The list of animals still living within the pale 

 and still wild is short indeed. Besides the deer, which 

 are not wild, there are hares, rabbits, squirrels, two kinds 

 of rat, — the land and the water rat, — stoat, weasel, mole, 

 and mouse. There are more varieties of mouse than of 

 any other animal : these, the weakest of all, have 

 escaped best, though exposed to so many enemies. A 

 few foxes, and still fewer badgers, complete the list, for 

 there are no other animals here. Modern times are 

 fatal to all creatures of prey, whether furred or feathered ; 

 and so even the owls are less numerous, both in actual 

 numbers and in variety of species, than they were even 

 fifty years ago. 



But the forest is not vacant. It is indeed full of 

 happy life. Every hollow tree — and there are many 

 hollow trees where none are felled — has its nest of 

 starlings, or titmice, or woodpeckers. Woodpeckers 

 are numerous, and amusing to watch. Wood-pigeons 



