164 
NATURE NOTES. 
If a common chap like me should go and over-drive his horse 
(Which ain’t a thing as I should do with mine), 
The S.P.C. A. officer is down on him of course, 
And he’s lucky with the option of a fine. 
And the tender-hearted ladies knows it serves ’em right, though that’s 
Not half the cruelty as goes to making of them hats. 
Up above and down beneath 
To Eliza on the Heath, 
They’d take a thousand lives to trim their hats. 
And ain’t they smart and pretty murder-hats ! 
THE FOREST. 
AMBLES in the forest, where all is so still, and one 
may walk for hours without hearing a sound, except 
now and again when the quietude is broken by the 
rumbling of a cart, the stroke of the woodman’s axe, 
or the bark of the roebuck, lead to much thought and contem- 
plation ; and in this paper I purpose to give, firstly, some account 
of a German forest and of some of the animals to be met in 
it, and secondly, to offer some general remarks on forestry as it 
affects the climate of countries and the well-being of nations. 
It was in the middle of July that I went to lodge en pension 
with one of the royal foresters about seventeen miles from 
Cassel, where these lines were written. The forester's house 
(in German Forsthmis) is a well built structure streaked out- 
side with dark beams, as are seen in the older dwellings in the 
midland counties of England, and having its range of farm- 
buildings close by of similar construction, and almost overhung 
by the trees of the forest. 
The royal forest here extends for a distance of some ten 
miles along the river Weser, and being six miles broad is of a 
considerable size. It is enclosed by a high paling, which, how- 
ever, is placed some distance inside the trees, and so is not 
unsightly ; this serves to confine the red-deer, and prevent the 
wild boar from ravaging the adjoining potato fields, but is not 
able to altogether restrain the wanderings of the roe-buck, who 
are to be seen frequently in the open country. On one occasion 
I saw three of these last named dash past close by the Forst- 
haus, chased by a dog who would have fared badly had our host 
seen him, for he would have been undoubtedly shot. The shoot- 
ing of the wild pigs and red-deer is generally reserved for royal 
and official personages and senior officers in the army ; of the 
former game fifty head are killed annually, and of the latter 
thirty-five ; roe-buck having a certain growth of horn may be 
shot, but do not appear to be kept specially for great people. 
The forest is chiefly composed of beech and fir trees ; the 
former are closely planted in some places, in others they have 
been well thinned out so as to allow the trees to spread their 
