270 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



and clouded with brown, and are thus easily overlooked. About 

 the same time, or even earlier- — in February — the raven will 

 build, or rather used to, in the old woods round Burley. In 

 1858 the two last nests were taken, the eggs being somewhat 

 smaller than those which I have received from the Orkneys. 

 Another of its breeding stations was in Puckpits, where, how- 

 ever, it has not built for the last four seasons. Formerly the 

 bird was common enough, as the different Ravensnest Woods 

 still show ; and old men in the Forest have told me, in direct 

 opposition, however, to what Yarrell says,* that when, as boys, 

 taking its eggs, they were obliged to arm themselves with stones 

 and sticks to drive off the parent birds, who fiercely defended 

 their nests with their claws and bills. Now it is nearly extinct, 

 though a pair may sometimes be seen wherever there is a dead 

 horse or cow in the district. 



Then, when the summer comes, and the woods are green and 

 dark, the honey-buzzard skims round the tops of the trees ; and 

 the snipe, whose young have not yet left the swamps, goes 

 circling high up in the air, " bleating," as the common people 

 here call the noise of its wings, each time it descends in its 

 waving, wandering flight ; whilst out on the open spaces the 

 whinchat, known throughout the Forest, from its cry, as the 

 "furze hacker," jerks itself from one furze branch to another; 

 and flitting along with it fly a pair of Dartford warblers. 



And as, too, evening draws down, from the young green fern 

 the goatsucker, the "night-crow" and the "night-hawk" of the 

 district, springs up under your feet, and settles a few yards ofi", 

 and then flies a little way farther, hoping to lead you from its 

 white marble -veined eggs on the bare ground. 



* Vol. ii. p. 57. 



