i88 
NATURE NOTES 
one of Gilbert White’s Strawberry sliders down the Hanger. He 
says under the heading of “ Seeds Lying Dormant,” . . . 
“ When old beech trees are cleared away, the naked ground in 
a year or two becomes covered with strawberry plants, the 
seed of which must have lain in the ground for an age at least. 
One of the sliders or trenches down the middle of the Hanger, 
close covered over with lofty beeches near a century old, is still 
called Strawberry slider, though no strawberries have grown 
there in the memory of man. That sort of fruit did once, no 
doubt, abound there, and will again when the obstruction is 
removed.” 
On the top of the Zigzag is a huge boulder, called the 
wishing stone. Here the sheepdown commences, at this end 
with a brow of open turf, from which is seen one of the most 
charming, varied, extensive and peaceful views in the south of 
England, much enhanced just now by the lovely tints of the 
autumn leafage. The view was naturally interesting to me, 
as it includes in its area the home of my boyhood, as the bird 
flies but fifteen or twenty miles away. I could see the very hills 
and woods that surround it. It is peculiar how the little raised 
anthills on the sheepdown have become covered with wild 
thyme, rock rose and bird’s-foot trefoil, the latter becoming very 
dense and tufty, giving room for very little grass. The downs 
are but thinly clad with trees, but made up of thicket, open 
spaces, clumps and patches of bramble and bracken, hips and 
haws, scrubby beech and maple, and the usual accompaniments 
that make up the charming medley that Nature only can plant. 
Here were blackberries in abundance, hundredweights going to 
waste, although I was told that people came with baskets for 
miles round to get them. I could not resist a feast of the 
Selborne blackberries. I was much struck with the beautiful 
colours of some of the bramble leaves. We call the bramble ' 
a sub-evergreen, yet while much of the foliage keeps green 
through the winter, many leaves change in autumn and assume 
most lovely tints, seldom two alike ; and even the leaflets on 
the same leaf often vary in colour, every shade occurring from 
golden to deep crimson. I had never noticed the beauty of 
bramble leaves so much before, but thanks to Selborne, I 
have done so many times and in many places since, with much 
pleasure and interest. 
I returned from the west end of the sheepdown by the shady 
walk that runs diagonally right through the Hanger and is called 
the Bosco. This brought me back again to the stile at the 
bottom of the Zigzag. Owing to the dense shade of the Hanger 
there is little undergrowth. This is always the case with a 
beech wood ; since besides its shade, the beech is a surface-rooting 
tree, exhausting the soil where it abounds. Here and there a 
drawn holly, a little rambling privet, the more frequent ivy and 
a few patches of the wood melic grass was about all that could 
exist. 
