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 svmlit 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. 



