284 PLANTS PROPER FOR UNDERWOOD, 



the increase and preservation of game. Underwood 

 planted with a view to this object, should possess the 

 requisites of affording concealment and shelter, and 

 of rendering the interior of a forest difficult of ac- 

 cess, at the hours when poachers usually commit 

 their depredations. For the sake, likewise, of at- 

 tracting a variety of birds, w^hich, though not reck- 

 oned game, every person of taste will encourage to 

 frequent his plantations (such, for instance, as the 

 ring-dove, the thrush, the blackbird, the goldfinch, 

 the linnet, and others), it is desirable that under- 

 wood consist as much as possible of plants which 

 bear seeds or berries proper for the food of these 

 birds. Now, almost the whole of the plants men- 

 tioned above possess some of these properties, part 

 of them all. The lilac affords, by the multitude of 

 suckers which it throws out in all directions, no con- 

 temptible cover. The creeping woodbine and peri- 

 winkle, by ever and anon entangling the feet, ren- 

 der the traversing of a wood after sunset an enter- 

 prize far from expeditious, and not without danger 

 of many a sudden fall. The mountain-ash, besides 

 serving the purposes of concealment and shelter, 

 produces plentiful crops of berries for the subsist- 

 ence of various kinds of birds, and the tender bark 

 of its young shoots is fed on by the hare, when that 



