30 
NATURE NOTES 
left sacred to them, for it is one of those tracts of sylvan waste- 
land that are too small for coverts and do not repay the clearing 
of the woodcutter. The owls, however, are gone, and one is 
thankful that the Hanger still remains to us, and is likely to do 
so as long as it commends itself to the land-owner as a shelter 
for his sheepfold in lambing-time. 
A local legend describes a heathy knoll on the crest of the 
Hanger as the site of a Roman encampment, and there is a little 
rocky basin, overhung by rugged alders, that is called a Roman 
well. The legend, no doubt, has its origin in the fact that 
denarii of Victorious have been ploughed up in the neighbour- 
ing fields, and that not far away there is a veritable Roman 
stronghold, age-worn and lichen-stained, yet as firm in its 
foundations and massive in its structure as it was many cen- 
turies ago. There are many evidences of the work of war- 
waging propraetors along the upland heights that overlook the 
fenny water-meadows which, since the days of the Iceni, have 
been reclaimed from a wide waste of waters ; but the Hanger 
has attractiveness and charm that need no legendary stories to 
enhance them. Even now, in these late autumn days, there are 
few pleasanter places for a rural ramble. Although the golden- 
rod is faded and the bracken is withered and sere, the wood- 
pigeons are still clattering among the tree tops and the squirrels 
gambolling on the lower boughs. Rabbits are frisking amid the 
fern, and now and again a rustling of the fallen leaves denotes the 
presence of field mice or a boring mole. One has only to remain 
still and quiet for a few minutes to be able to detect some sign 
of active wild life, though it may be but the twittering of a 
belated dragon-fly’s wings against the stems of the dry grasses. 
On the calmest of autumn days one can hear the leaves falling. 
They drop from the twigs without the fanning of a breath of 
breeze, and as they fall their tapping against the lower branches 
is as distinctly heard as though it were the flapping of the wings 
of a startled bird. 
Along the foot of the Hanger, between the grass-bordered 
path and the base of the slope, runs a narrow dyke or “ holl,” 
as the country folk call it, almost “grown up” with sedge, bur- 
reed, brooklime, and water parsnep. At times this shallow dyke 
dries up, and then its bed is .seen to be covered with a thick, 
mossy coating of ivy-leaved duckweed. The alders overhang 
this weedy holl, which receives the greater part of their leaves 
and catkins, and their rugged roots, moss-grown and bristling 
with brushwood, extend far along the banks. The straggling 
brambles that grow between the alders retain their leaves all 
through the winter: just now they are yellow with the twining 
bines of the wild hop. A few elder bushes are losing their 
berries — some have fallen, others have been carried away by the 
birds — and the corymbs from which they have disappeared have 
assumed a deep claret hue. Underneath them is a dense growth 
of water-pepper, the leaves of which are brilliantly variegated 
