MORE ABOUT GAME-BIRDS. 93 



work, and have also put him off his quarry after he 

 had killed it. 



This is a beautiful part of the country — a circle 

 of twenty miles, and far more beyond — a fir-and- 

 heather sanctuary, — a home and hunting-ground 

 for all wild creatures. A generous land was this, 

 where food was abundant and where the wild notes 

 of the ring-ouzel rang out in the season when he 

 visited there. All this wild beauty and wild life 

 by rail almost within an hour of London town to 

 Dorking station, and a five miles' walk afterwards. 

 This beautiful country, with its hills and wood and 

 valleys, is still unchanged ; so too are some of the 

 bog-quakes, and also the vast ranges of fir and 

 heather districts beyond it. But the black-game 

 are seen no more. 



I knew this district before any railway was thought 

 about, and I knew it before any new buildings were 

 there, — before, in fact, it was thought possible to 

 build them where now they stand. Two or three 

 old mansions belonging to the gentry had been 

 there for centuries, but they were very wide apart, 

 and there were no others in the district. Things 

 ran smoothly then so far as concerned the sym- 



