138 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



instance, a column of smoke, curling like a huge snake 

 round the limbs of a great tree and then floating away 

 from the topmost branches, is a singular spectacle, so 

 opposed to the ordinary current of ideas as to be 

 certain of attracting the passer-by. It is the work, of 

 course, of some mischievous lout who has set fire to 

 the hollow interior of the tree. 



Such a tree, as previously pointed out, is the 

 favourite resort of bird and insect life. The heedless 

 mischief of the bird-keeping boys, or the ploughlads 

 rambling about on Sunday, destroys this Hotel de Ville 

 of the forest or hedgerow, the central house of assem- 

 bly of the birds. To light a fire seems one of the 

 special delights of these lads, and sometimes of men 

 who should have learned better ; and to light it in a 

 hollow tree is the highest flight of genius. A few hand- 

 fuls of withered grass and dead fern, half a dozen dry 

 sticks, a lucifer-match, and the thing is done. The 

 hollow within the tree is shaped like an inverted funnel, 

 large at the bottom and decreasing upwards, where at 

 the pointed roof one thin streak of daylight penetrates. 

 This formation is admirably adapted to ' draw ■ a fire 

 at the bottom, and so, once lit, it is not easily put out. 

 The ' touchwood ' smoulders and smokes immensely, 

 and a great black column rises in the air. So it will 

 go on smouldering and smoking for days till nothing 



