THE NEW FOREST. 87 



also the most impressive in the whole Forest. Starting from that unique 

 structure, the charcoal burner's hut, the path leads gradually upward until it 

 culminates in a knoll adorned by a noble company of the very largest trees. 



The effective grouping of these leviathans, the intense silence that 

 surrounds them, the sensation of smallness caused by standing at their feet, 

 combine, one and all, to inspire an eerie feeling in the mind of the most 

 soulless of observers. One starts for the moment at the squawk of the Jay, 

 or the roar of wings, as a hundred Pigeons dash across the highest tops ; 

 even the note of the Tit seems to have lost its merriment amidst the sombre 

 majesty of the grove. 



Such is the New Forest, not remarkable, perhaps, for its list of rarities, 

 nor even for the number of birds to be seen there, but a place where there 

 are no trespass boards, where the inland naturalist can wander unrestrained, 

 one of those tracts, so rare in Southern England, where one can revel in that 

 feeling of absolute freedom so seldom nowadays to be experienced, save on 

 the boundless mudflats of the shore. 



