4 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
human inhabitants of the wood. The wood that 
was mine to walk in, the part which belonged to 
the house and which as a fact I alone used, covered 
an area of about sixty acres and was one with the 
entire wood, only divided from the rest by oak 
palings. When one turned from the lawns and 
gardens into the wood it was like passing from 
the open sunlit air to the twilight and_ still 
atmosphere of a cathedral interior. It was also 
a strangely silent place; if a thrush or chaffinch 
was heard to sing, the sound came from the garden 
I had quitted or from some other garden in the 
wood still farther away. The only small birds in 
these pines were those on a brief visit, and little 
parties of tits drifted through. Nevertheless, the 
wood —the part I was privileged to walk in— 
had its own appropriate fauna—squirrels, wood-, 
pigeons, a family of jays, another of magpies, a 
pair of yaffles, and one of sparrow-hawks. Game 
is not preserved in these woods which are par- 
celled out to the different houses in lots of a dozen 
to fifty or more acres; consequently several 
species which are on the gamekeeper’s black list 
are allowed to exist. Most of the birds I have 
named bred during the summer—the hawks and 
yaffles, a dozen or more pairs of wood-pigeons, 
and a pair each of magpies and jays. The other 
members of the family parties of the last two 
species had no doubt been induced by means of 
sharp beaky arguments to go and look for nesting- 
places elsewhere. 
