1 52 JUNE 



and the diffidence of the trout and the doubts of the 

 fisherman are together dissipated. The moment has 

 come, and most of us who know the place may feel that 

 if any scene excels this gentle river valley on a summer 

 evening. Paradise is Paradise indeed. 



2. 



I have often wished that the wood might play a 

 greater part in English village life. It is often private 

 and its superfluous wealth of fuel and flowers is 

 usually wasted. Everyone loves a wood (though some 

 express their love by using its dells as dump-holes) ; and 

 it exerts a beneficent influence. In my experience the 

 three best naturalists in any given parish are game 

 keepers, shepherds and foresters. All three are worth 

 the cultivation of any countryman, especially a naturalist. 

 They are fiill of wisdom. To give a particular example : 

 A woodman with a taste for natural history has more 

 than once made a suggestion that might prove agreeable 

 to many a gardener. The wood in which he was working 

 is open and stately, with trunks that divided the spaces 

 into endless naves and transepts. You could trace half 



The tricks of art that builders learnt of trees ; 



the columns and curves of every arch known to Moor or 

 Greek or Goth, with knots of the pattern of any and 

 every device of tracery. Any wood is a beautiful place 

 at any season, but it may be gloomy and almost forbidding 

 in certain aspects, and at the best the majority of woods 

 are strangely still and silent. The tinny cackle of a 

 pheasant, the coo of a ringdove, the shriek of a jay, or 

 the chatter of a magpie or jackdaw, may exhaust the list 

 of vocal birds. 



