350 THE OLD MANOR HOUSE 



as God or Nature made it, is the home of wild 

 animals and of still wilder birds. There, if nowhere 

 else in the neighbourhood, the warrior carrion crow 

 for whom, though he has few friends, I might 

 have much to say and the magpie, and the kestrel, 

 and the sparrow-hawk may breed in safety. It has 

 never been over-preserved. Its pheasants are all 

 wild pheasants, and its rabbits have never been 

 deprived of half their liberty, of half their liveliness, 

 and of a fair chance of their life, by wire-netting. To 

 shoot at Melcombe Park is, therefore, to enjoy, not 

 tame and murderous, but true, sport. Woodcocks 

 love the spot ; for it is good " boring" ground, and 

 is seldom disturbed, except by the huntsman's horn 

 and the view-halloo. It is a great preserve of foxes 

 which, even when they are most hardly pressed 

 by the hounds, are unwilling to leave so secure a 

 sanctuary. It is the home, too, of the graceful 

 roedeer which, found though it is in most of the 

 great coverts of Dorset and in Dorset alone, as 

 I have already remarked, of English counties 

 finds its surest refuge here. You may watch them, 

 three or four together, feeding, in the evening, on the 

 fields outside " the park " ; or better still, you may 

 catch sight of them on the crest of Nettlecombe 

 Tout, or of " Dorsetshire Gap," standing out, in 



