142 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



such a sudden fierceness as furze, and there is no possi- 

 bihty of stopping it. With a loud crackling, and swaying 

 of pointed tongues of flame visible miles away even at 

 noontide, and a cloud of smoke, the rift rolls on, licking 

 up grass and fern and heath ; and its hot breath goes 

 before it, and the blast rises behind it. As on the beach 

 the wave seems to break at the foot, and then in an instant 

 the surf runs away along the sand, so from its first start 

 the flame widens out right and left with a greedy eagerness, 

 and what five minutes ago was but a rolling bonfire is now 

 a wall of fire a quarter of a mile broad, and swelling as it 

 goes. 



Then happens on a lesser scale exactly the same thing 

 that travellers describe of the burning prairies of the Far 

 West — -a stampede of the thousands of living creatures, 

 bird and beast : rabbits, hares, foxes, weasels, stoats, 

 badgers, wild cats, all rushing in a maddened frenzy of 

 fear they know not whither. Often, with a strange 

 reversal of instinct, so to say, they will crowd together 

 right in the way of the flames, huddling in hundreds where 

 the fire must pass, and no effort of voice or presence of 

 man will drive them away. The hissing, crackling fire 

 sweeps over, and in an instant all have perished. No 

 more miserable spectacle can be witnessed than the terror 

 of these wretched creatures. Birds seem to fly into the 

 smoke and are suffocated — they fall and are burned. 

 Hares, utterly beside themselves, will rush almost into the 



