262 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



of squirrels is heard. The older trees attract wood- 

 peckers, and the nuthatch throws out fine fibres of 

 rotten wood. Sometimes a pheasant or a partridge 

 will startle, getting up from its olive eggs by a log 

 left by the charcoal-burners. Thus rudely dis- 

 turbed it has no time to scatter leaves over its nest, 

 as is its wont. The shaggy and corrugated bark of 

 the old trees is larvae-haunted, and consequently 

 mouse-like creepers abound. These little creatures 

 on every trunk show conspicuously as they run their 

 marvellous adaptation to an end and fulfil it perfectly. 

 All the wood-birds are there the white-throat, the 

 wood and the willow-wren, tne chiff-chaff and 

 garden-warbler. These sing from the leafy boughs. 

 But higher up, towards the escarpment, the floor 

 of the wood is rugged and rock-strewn. Boulders 

 have rolled from above, and among these dwell 

 weasels and ermines. There are at least a pair of 

 martens, and foxes from the fells have their tracks 

 through the wood. A primitive mansion once stood 

 in the wood, but now is gone. It had been large, 

 and green mounds, now laid low, mark out its 

 dimensions. Old oak-panelling, with long-gone 

 dates, are sometimes dug up, and these are covered 

 with carvings " carvings quaint and curious, all 

 made out of the carver's brain." Lying around this 

 has been an extensive orchard, the rich, though old, 

 trees of which remain. And now, in this glorious 



