86 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



Many have gone into raptures over the beauty of the river, and if the 

 tide is high the scenery is picturesque in the extreme. Owing to its winding 

 course and the w r ay in which the woods slope down to the water, it hardly 

 looks like a river in many places, but gives the impression of a series of land- 

 locked lakes; while here and there some beautiful little creek shoots off into the 

 Forest, and, overgrown with reeds and water-plants at the further end, affords 

 a welcome resting place to the many Wild Fowl which are commonly to be 

 met with all along the river's length. Hither, too, come the Herons from 

 Vinney Ridge, and, loth to leave these sequestered pools, they flap forth, time 

 after time, beneath the very nose of the intruder the tamest race of Herons 

 that I have ever met with anywhere. 



As we get nearer to the Solent, and meadows take the place of woodland 

 on the banks, we shall soon be listening to the shrill " peeweet " of the Lap- 

 wing, or the far-reaching double note of the Redshank, which is also found 

 in some numbers near the river's mouth. No doubt in bygone days this was 

 one of the favourite resorts of the Harriers, but there are none to be seen here 

 now; and though Green Woodpeckers are common along the banks, and 

 Beaulieu is the only part of the Forest where I have ever heard the Lesser 

 Spotted, it is with Ducks and Waders that the district mostly abounds. 

 From the Coastguard station there is a good path along the Solent to 

 Lymington. On one side is a furze-brake, on the other open marshes, where 

 the Lapwings breed, and the whole place is very lonely and deserted by 

 everything save the birds. The Lymington mudflats have been immortalized 

 by Colonel Hawker as a wild-fowling station, but it is hardly the sort of 

 place for an amateur, professional night-punting being there the order of 

 the day. 



A third day's tramp in the Forest should take the direction of Mark 

 Ash and Boldre Wood. One cannot hold out any great hopes of meeting 

 with rarities ; in fact, my own visits have, so far as birds are concerned, left 

 behind them only a vision of Tits and Wood- Pigeons ; but here, nevertheless, 

 if anywhere, will one encounter the larger birds of prey. In Mark Ash my 

 brother claims to have seen a Peregrine ; it passed quite close to him as he 

 stood beneath a holly bush taking shelter from an April shower, and on the 

 same day he heard numerous raptorial cries. This, too, was the last resort 

 of the Honey-Buzzard, and in these lofty beeches it made its last attempts 

 to rear a brood. Had there been more thick brushwood beneath, it would 

 have had a -better chance, but the walking is everywhere easy, and it cannot 

 have been very difficult to discover the nest. The place merits a visit, if 

 only as being the last haunt of this extraordinary bird, but the scenery is 



