NATURE NEAR LONDON 



dition. If there are sufficient eggs to last the 

 season, then a few every day produce the best 

 effect ; if not, they had better not have a feast 

 followed by a fast. 



The sense of having a roof overhead is felt in 

 walking through a forest of firs like this, because 

 the branches are all rt the top of the trunks. The 

 stems rise to the same height, and then the dark 

 foliage spreading forms a roof. As they are not 

 very near together, the eye can see some distance 

 between them, and as there is hardly any under- 

 wood or bushes nothing higher than the fern 

 there is a space open and unfilled between the 

 ground and the roof so far above. 



A vast hollow extends on every side, nor is it 

 broken by the flitting of birds or the rush of 

 animals among the fern. The sudden note of a 

 wood-pigeon, hoarse and deep, calling from a fir 

 top, sounds still louder and ruder in the spacious 

 echoing vault beneath, so loud as at first to re- 

 semble the baying of a hound. The call ceases, 

 and another of these watch-dogs of the woods 

 takes it up afar off. 



There is an opening in the monotonous firs by 

 some rising ground, and the sunshine falls on 

 young Spanish chestnuts and underwood, through 

 which is a little used foot-path. If firs are planted 

 in wildernesses with the view of ultimately cover- 

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