FOREST. 187 



and for one step that you walk in sunlight ten are 

 in shade. Thus, partly concealed in full day, the 

 forest always contains a mystery. The idea that 

 there may be something in the dim arches held up by 

 the round columns of the beeches lures the footsteps 

 onwards. Something must have been lately in the 

 circle under the oak where the fern and bushes 

 remain at a distance and wall in a lawn of green. 

 There is nothing on the grass but the upheld leaves 

 that have dropped, no mark of any creature, but this 

 is not decisive ; if there are no physical signs, there 

 is a feeling that the shadow is not vacant. In the 

 thickets, perhaps — the shadowy thickets with front 

 of thorn — it has taken refuge and eluded us. Still 

 onward the shadows lead us in vain but pleasant 

 chase. 



These endless trees are a city to the tree-building 

 birds. The round knot-holes in the beeches, the 

 holes in the elms and oaks ; they find them all out. 

 From these issue the immense flocks of starlings 

 which, when they alight on an isolated elm in winter, 

 make it suddenly black. From these, too, come 

 forth the tits, not so welcome to the farmer, as he 

 considers they reduce his fruit crop; and in these 

 the gaudy woodpeckers breed. With starlings, wood- 

 pigeons, and rooks the forest is crowded like a city 

 in spring, but now in autumn it is comparatively 

 deserted. The birds are away in the fields, some at 

 the grain, others watching the plough, and following 

 it so soon as a furrow is opened. But the stoats are 

 busy — they have not left, nor the weasels; and so 

 eager are they that, though they hide in the fern at 



