2 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
monotonous because the trees are nearly all pines 
and one tree is like another, and their tall, bare 
trunks wall you in, and their dark stiff foliage 
is like a roof above you. I, too, like being in a 
pine wood, just as I like being by the sea, for a 
few hours or a day, but for a place to live in I 
should prefer a moor, a marsh, a sea-salting, or 
any other empty, desolate place with a wide 
prospect. 
In spite of this feeling I actually did spend a 
great part of last summer in such a place. It is 
an extensive tract, which when the excitement 
and rush for the medicinal pines began, was first 
seized upon by builders as being near London 
and in a highly aristocratic neighbourhood. Im- 
mediately, as by a miracle, large ornate houses 
sprang up like painted agarics in the autumn 
woods—houses suitable for the occupation of im- 
portant persons. The wood itself was left un- 
touched; the houses, standing a quarter of a mile 
or more apart, with their gardens and lawns, were 
like green, flowery oases scattered about in its 
sombre wilderness. Gardens and lawns are a 
great expense, the soil being a hungry sand, and 
for all the manuring and watering the flowers 
have a somewhat sad and sickly look, and the 
lawns a poor thin turf, half grass and half moss. 
As a naturalist I was curious to observe the 
effect of life in a pine wood on the inhabitants. 
It struck me that it does not improve their health, 
or make them happy, and that they suffer most in 
