DYKE AND DELL-HOLE 83 



dell-holes as a rule ate marvellous nurseries of trees, 

 though now and again you find one kept dear and sub 

 jected to the plough in open fields. I suppose the seed 

 lings find good protection in their youth, but whatever 

 the reason, groves of trees of especially good size and 

 shape fill the circle. These, too, are a winter sanctuary 

 for many creatures, though it must be confessed that 

 they attract the exploiters of the steel trap and the wire 

 noose. I have found lately an unusual number of wire 

 nooses in various places ; and perhaps they begin to 

 take the place of the much more obvious steel trap. They 

 are more elaborate and much more expensively made 

 than those of an earlier date and boast a little cylindrical 

 runner that could not be surpassed for smoothness. I 

 have found (some years ago) a fox in a toothed trap and 

 many a rabbit in a noose ; and could wish that both in 

 struments of torture could be prohibited by law. The 

 other day a rabbit was brought to me that had broken 

 (so strong are a rabbit s limbs) one of these nooses, at 

 least a year earlier. The wire was entirely overgrown by 

 flesh, as one sees a fence wire absorbed into a tree, and 

 the little property piece was brightly polished by per 

 petual friction* Our little Edens are so desecrated, but 

 they are Edens nevertheless. 



Now and again one of these dell-holes is found within 

 the pale of a garden. Much may be done with a chalk 

 pit, a steep-cliffed mine out of which chalk has been dug 

 within memory or at least record. There is, for example, 

 the famous chalk pit at Bradfield, that very lovely Berk 

 shire village. It became a Greek theatre, and some of the 

 audience may sit &quot; under the walnuts.&quot; Even these re 

 luctant trees have found a niche there. I know one pit 

 that is entirely enveloped in wild clematis ; and the 

 masses of old man s beard with hoar frost on their edges 



