2o6 
THE SITE. 
NAME may be commonplace, but it may also stand 
for much. So here, some 200 acres of arable land, 
interspersed with spinnies of Beech, and Fir and Hazel, 
sloping upward to a down studded with Junipers, we 
call “ the Site,” because a proposed mansion has never appeared, 
and we trust never will. We may be wrong, but from early 
boyhood it has been to our minds the most lovely spot in all 
England. The village nestles at its base, the sun-smitten 
channel glints in the distance with its winding estuaries coming 
far inland, and the majestic Island guards the approach to our 
naval metropolis. On the other hand the grey cathedral raises 
its glorious spire heavenwards above the many woods. There 
is the fishing village where Canute probably rebuked the waves: 
in that ancient church, for certain, his fair-haired daughter 
sleeps. Yes, for old time’s sake we love all the landmarks, even 
yon “ folly ” tower, the green woods and the virgin downs. Our 
faithful henchman and I sit on the game-bags and talk of the 
past, as we smoke the pipe of peace. Did he not teach us boys 
— who love him as a brother — to stalk our first rabbit, to know 
and to love every acre of the woodlands below and to study all 
the wild life and the beauties of “ the Site ? ” Yes, when the early 
days of catapults and air-guns had passed their generally harm- 
less span, the early misses were explained or condoned, and our 
ex-soldier friend trained us slowly to persevere and to drink 
deeply of his sportsman’s spirit. There are the red-letter days, 
the right and left at Landrail, the first Quail, the Partridges 
with the white horseshoe on their breasts instead of the usual 
brown, the occasional plum-gray or black Rabbits and the 
coming of the first Red-legged Partridges. Above all, the days 
in the woodlands and on the down gave us the love of birds, the 
wish to master their notes, to discriminate their flights, to note 
their habits. On “ the Site ” the Stone Plover still rears its 
young, the Cirl Bunting is fairly common, and a year ago I saw 
a fine Hen Harrier and a Peregrine. Occasionally a Hooded 
or Isle of Wight Crow, as we term them, strays there, and once 
I flushed a pair of Wild Duck nesting on the down. Sometimes 
a Snipe rises from the turnip fields, and on any fine afternoon the 
guinea-fowl chuckle of the Red-legs tells us how the Partridges 
love the juniper down. Down in the woods below us we think 
of the possible right and left at Woodcock we boyishly thought 
too far or too difficult to attempt, or of the Stone Curlews which 
startled us by rising well in the centre of the wood. There is 
the dell hole full of burdocks and thistles where we have often 
watched little parties of Siskins, Redpoles or Goldfinches. 
There we first gazed on the lovely eggs of the Sparrowhawk and 
flushed the Nightjar, the young Cuckoo and the Long-Eared Owl, 
or learnt the “gyp” call of the Greater and the “ si si si si si ” 
note of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. On those long ridings 
