THE PATH IN THE WOOD 
209 
they managed now the runner was disabled, followed at a dis- 
tance to watch them, and he was immensely interested to see 
the setter go into the thicket, while the little terrier stayed out- 
side in his friend’s usual place. It seemed just as if they had 
taken counsel together and decided that it was the wisest plan 
for the fleetest runner to stay outside. I never heard if they 
caught anything on this particular occasion, but I am sure they 
deserved a reward for their cleverness. 
Parnell Jones. 
THE PATH IN THE WOOD. 
|NE of the glories of Southern Hampshire is its woods ; 
they clothe the hillsides, fringe the streams, and fill up 
many acres of the low-lying lands. All lovers of the 
picturesque know the New Forest, but to that great 
tract belongs a distinction all its own. Apart from those 
thousands of acres of woodland and heath there are other dis- 
tricts where the woods have an equal charm, even though they 
may not boast of trees so magnificent or so old as the giants of 
the Forest. The wanderer through the district south of the 
chalk downs has little difficulty in imagining what a vast 
stretch of woodland must have covered the country in the 
bygone days, before cultivation began to make inroads on the 
forests. Those were the days when our forefathers gave to the 
pursuit of war and of the chase the time that now is spent 
upon the more peaceful pursuits of agriculture and manufacture. 
Hunting was then the sport for kings and nobles, and their 
followers vied with each other in the excitement of the chase. 
Now banks and fences enclose the woods, a line of demarcation 
separates them from the fields and pastures, and the old hunting 
days are gone. There is no wild animal but the fox to call 
the huntsmen to horse in the winter mornings, and half-tame 
pheasants are the chief quarry to fall to the sportsman’s gun. 
Before the progress of advancing civilisation the wild animals of 
the old forest are gone : man’s advance means beast’s destruc- 
tion ; and what has passed in England is passing now in the 
great advancement of the New World and in the rapid civilising 
of the hunting-grounds of Africa. The botanist also raises his 
lamentation over the disappearance of some plant which is gone 
before the clearing, the plough and the hedge-trimmer ; and 
the entomologist looks in vain for the butterfly or moth that in 
former years fell to his net in a spot where houses or cultivation 
have destroyed its haunts. These things must be : man must 
advance : he must be housed and fed, and it cannot fail to be at 
the expense of wild Nature. Only let the advance be tempered 
with such care and discretion as shall not fail to leave what may 
be left of Nature’s delights for those who come after. 
