FRIENDS OR FOES? 205 



Forty years bring great changes. I can remember 

 spots which were shunned by all who were not com- 

 pelled to go to them; places that had evil names 

 given to them, and with good reason — long belts of 

 thick woods that sloped down to dreary marshes 

 and the sea-shore, which could only be traversed 

 in those days by very few. 



A grey old church stood on the edge of those great 

 woods, and once on each Sunday a small congrega- 

 tion might be seen coming from different directions 

 to worship there. Sometimes I have made one of 

 it, and a quaint affair that service was : the feathered 

 songsters in the trees outside far surpassed the 

 singers who led the psalms and the chants within. 



Although this was not a game-preserving district, 

 there were plenty of hares, rabbits, and wild-fowl to 

 furnish food for the many cats that had run wild in 

 the woods for years, and had so nearly gone back to 

 the original type of wild cat that only competent 

 judges could tell them apart. They had the same 

 colour, markings, thick fur, and short, bushy tails, 

 and had become as unlike the common domestic 

 cat as the true leopard is unlike the snow-leopard 

 of Thibet. 



