80 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



briars, bearing in June the sweet wild roses and in 

 winter red oval fruit. Ivy comes creeping up, and 

 in its thick warm coverts nests are built. Below, 

 among the powdery ■ touchwood ' which lines the 

 floor of this living hut, great fungi push their 

 coloured heads up to the light. And here you may 

 take shelter when the rain comes unexpectedly pat- 

 tering on the leaves, and listen as it rises to a roar 

 within the forest. Sometimes wild bees take up their 

 residence in the hollow, slowly filling it with comb, 

 buzzing busily to and fro ; and then it is not to be 

 approached so carelessly, though so ready are all 

 creatures to acknowledge kindness that ere now I 

 have even made friends with the inhabitants of a 

 wasp's nest. 



A thick carpet of dark green moss grows upon one 

 side of the tree, and over it the tall brake fern rears 

 its yellow stem. In the evening the goat-sucker or 

 nightjar comes with a whirling phantom-like flight, 

 wheeling round and round : a strange bird, which 

 will roost all day on a rail, blinking or sleeping in the 

 daylight, and seeming to prefer a rail or a branch 

 without leaves to one that affords cover. Here also 

 the smaller bats flit in the twilight, and, if you stand 

 still, will pursue their prey close to your head, wheel- 

 ing about it so that you may knock them down with 



