These accounts, too, like all others, are full of items for the repairs of the bells and bell-ropes, confirming what may be found in the narratives of old French and Italian travellers concerning our English passion for bell-ringing. The following looks very much like cause and effect:—

The “King’s day” was that on which the King ascended the throne. Again, to show the mixed and varied contents of the Churchwardens’ Books, we will once more go back to those of Ellingham. Under the date of 1556 we find:—

Under the head of “Layinges out in the secunde yere,” meaning 1557, we meet:—

And, again, under the “Layinges out in the thyrdde yere,” we find:—

All these entries, to the church historian, and no less to the general student, cannot be without peculiar interest. The smoke silver, which so frequently occurs, is either the money paid for certain privileges of cutting fuel, which, as we have seen, was formerly the case in the Forest, or an assessment on the houses according to the number of hearths, but more probably the former.[263] The general reader will scarcely care for more, but I trust elsewhere to give further extracts from these most interesting books.

Turning back to the Registers, let me add from the Ibbesley Parish Register Book, as so few people have seen a specimen, an entry of an affidavit of burial in a woollen shroud, in compliance with the Act passed in 1679, for the encouragement of the woollen manufacture in England.[264] It thus runs, placed opposite to the entry of the person’s burial, and written in the same handwriting:—“Jan. 9^th, 1678/79, I rec^d a certificate from Mr. Roger Clavell, Justice of y^e peace at Brokenhurst, that Thomas King and Anthony King, sons of Anthony King, deceased, did make oath before him, the sayd Roger Clavell, that the aforesayd Antony King was buried according to the late Act of Parliament.”

And again, opposite to the entries of their deaths, we find—“November 11^th.—Certified by John Torbuck, Vicar of Ellingham, y^t Edward Baily and Nicholas Baily, of Ibsely, were buried in woollen only.”

Pope’s lines on Mrs. Oldfield need hardly here be quoted. To conclude, of the parish books in the district let me only say that at Fordingbridge may be found an inventory of all the church furniture for 1554; and at Ibbesley, lists of collections “towards the redemption of the poor slaves out of Turkey,” “for the poor French Protestants,” “for the redemption of captives,” and “for the distressed Protestants beyond the sea,”—all testifying to the social and moral condition of the people, without which it is impossible to give the history of any district or any country.

CHAPTER XX.
THE GEOLOGY.

I have endeavoured, whenever there was an opportunity, to point out the natural history of the Forest, feeling sure that, from a lack of this knowledge, so many miss the real charms of the country. “One green field is like another green field,” cried Johnson. Nothing can be so untrue. No two fields are ever the same. A brook flowing through the one, a narrow strip of chalk intersecting the other, will make them as different as Perthshire from Essex. Even Socrates could say in the Phædrus, τὰ μὲν οὖν χωρία καὶ τὰ δένδρα οὐδέν μ’ ἐθέλει διδάσκειν. and this arose from the state, or rather absence, of all Natural Science at Athens. Had that been different he would have spoken otherwise.

The world is another place to the man who knows, and to the man who is ignorant of Natural History. To the one the earth is full of a thousand significations, to the other meaningless.

First of all, then, for a few words on the geology of the Forest; for upon this everything depends—not only the scenery, but its Flora and Fauna, the growth of its trees and the course of its streams. Throughout it is composed of the Middle-Eocene, the Osborne and Headon Beds capping the central portion, with their fluvio-marine formation. The Upper Bagshot develops itself below them, and is succeeded by the Barton Clays, so well exposed on the coast, and finally by the Bracklesham Beds, which crop out in the valley of Canterton, trending in a south-easterly direction to Dibden.

Here, then, where the New Forest stands, in the Eocene period, rolled an inland sea, whose waves lashed the Wiltshire chalk hills on the north, moulding, with every stroke of their breakers, its chalk flints into pebbles, dashing them against its cliffs, as the waves do at this very hour those very same pebbles along the Hurst beach. Its south-western boundary-line between Ballard Head and the Needles was rent asunder by volcanic action, and the chalk-flints flung up vertically mark to this day the violence of the disruption.

Long after this the Isle of Wight was altogether separated by the Solent from the mainland, but still ages before the historic period. The various traditions, as to the former depth of the channel, how Sir Bevis, of Southampton, waded across it, how, too, the carts brought the Binstead stone for building Beaulieu Abbey over the dry bed at low water, have been previously given. The passage, too, in Diodorus Siculus has been already examined,[265] and there can be no doubt, notwithstanding his also making it, like the traditions, a peninsula at low water, that his Ictis is the Isle of Wight and not St. Michael’s Mount. The mere local evidence of the mass of tin, the British road—more like a deep trench than a road—still plainly traceable across the Forest, the names along it corresponding with that of its continuation in the Island, would alone, most assuredly, show that this was the place whence the first traders, and, in after-times, the Romans, exported their tin. We must, however, remember that the channel of the Solent was caused by depression rather than by excavation; and that at this moment an alteration in the levels, as noticed by Mr. Austen,[266] is going on eastward of Hurst Castle.

The drift, which spreads over the whole of the New Forest, is not very interesting. No elephants’ tusks, or elks’ horns, so far as I know, have ever been discovered. A few species of Terebratula and Pecten, some flint knives, and the os inominatum, of probably Bos longifrons, mentioned farther on, are the only things at present found. Still, in one way, it is most interesting, as completely disproving the Chroniclers’ accounts that, before its afforestation by the Conqueror, the district of the Forest was so fertile. The fact is a sheer impossibility. No wheat could ever be grown on this great bed of chalk-gravel, which is varied only by patches of sand.

But nowhere, perhaps, in the world can we see the stratification of the upper portion of the Middle-Eocene better than at Hordle and Barton, as the sea serves to keep the different strata exposed. The beds dip easterly with a fall of about one in a hundred, though, at the extreme west, at High Cliff, it is much less, and here and there in some few places they lie almost horizontally.[267] At Hordle they seem to have been deposited in a river of a very uniform depth. There is but one single fault in the whole series, just under Mead End, where all the beds have alike suffered. Here and there, however, they are deposited with an undulating line; and here and there, too, a rippled surface occurs, caused by the action of small waves. The river appears to have varied very much in the amount and force of its stream, as some of the beds, where the shells are less frequent, have been deposited very rapidly, whilst others, where the organic remains are more abundant, have been laid on very slowly and in very still water.[268]

It will be impossible to examine all the beds. One or two, however, may be mentioned. And since the beds rise at the east we will begin from Milford. First of all, at Mineway, there runs a remarkable band of fine sand, the “Middle Marine Bed,” discovered some twenty-five years ago, by Mr. Edwards, and subsequently successfully worked by Mr. Higgins. It is seldom, however, exposed for more than a few yards; but that is sufficient to show, that after the elevation of the beds beneath they once more subsided, and the sea came over them again, and after that they were once again elevated.

Just below Hordle House rises the “Crocodile Bed,” running out of the cliff about three hundred yards from Beckton Bunny. The lowest part of it teems with fish-scales, teeth, crocodile plates, ophidian vertebræ, seed vessels, and other vegetable matter, very often mixed in a coprolitic bed, just beneath a band of tough clay, the specimens being more frequent to the east than the west. The accompanying section (I.) will, perhaps, not only serve to show the situation of the bed, but also those above and below. My measurements will be found to differ slightly from Sir Charles Lyell’s[269] and Dr. Wright’s;[270] but this is owing to their having been taken in different places.

Immediately under the “Leaf Bed,” which, as seen in the opposite section, rises from the shore to the west of Hordle House, comes the lowest bed of the Lower Freshwater Series, formed of blue sandy clay sixteen feet in thickness, from whence Mr. Falconer obtained so many of his mammalian remains.[271]

Ferruginous flint gravel interstratified with sand—18 feet.

Light blue marl in the upper part running into sand—12 feet.

Ligneous bed—12 inches.

Bluish marl running into shades of light grey, caused by the comminuted shelly matter—15 feet.

Ligneous bed—9 inches.

Green marl—3 feet 6 inches.

Limestone—4 inches.

Lignite—1 inch.

Green marl—5 feet 4 inches.

Grey sand—portion of Dr. Wright’s Crocodile Bed—4 feet.

Fossil bed—9 to 13 inches.

a, b—Bands of tough brown clay, not continuous.

c—Coprolite bed appearing here and there, and always full of organic remains.

Sand bed, uncertain—1 foot 8 inches.

Light blue marl—4 feet 6 inches.

Grey sand—2 feet 5 inches.

Leaf bed, which here rises from the beach—18 inches.

The present sea-shore.

It is a bed, however, which is seldom open, and can be worked only at particular tides. It may easily be recognized as lying between the Leaf Bed and the well-marked Lignite Bed, which shows the first traces of salt-water, and where, in the lower portion, Neritina concava may be abundantly found. This last bed may be well seen at Beckton Bunny (Section II.). The lignite, however, though it will give a good deal of heat, will not blaze. Locally it is sometimes used for making black paint.

Flint gravel—scarcely more than 3 or 4 feet, with an uncertain band of white sand.

Lignite—3 inches.

Brown clay—3 inches.

Lignite—3 inches.

Marl and sand—2 feet 2 inches.

Ligneous bed, containing shells much broken—8 inches.

Grey sand—2 feet 4 inches.

Orange-coloured sand, with very few fossils at this point, though plenty eastward—15 feet 9 inches.

Olive bed. Fossils abundant—27 feet 3 inches.

The present sea-shore.

Passing on to Beckton Bunny we reach the first true bed of the Lower Marine Formation, which rises a little eastward of that ravine. I have distinguished it as the Olive Bed, from the abundance of specimens of Oliva Branderi, forming the equivalent to number eighteen in Dr. Wright’s arrangement, and which, when worked, emits a strong smell of sulphur.

Immediately under the Olive Bed, as seen in the opposite section (II.), taken immediately on the west side of the Bunny, rises grey sand, seventeen feet and a half in thickness, possessing only a few casts of shells. The next bed, however, composed also of grey sand, rising about three hundred yards farther on, is, perhaps, the richest in the whole of this Marine series, and its shells the best preserved. It may at once be recognized by the profusion of Chama squamosa, from which it has been called the Chama Bed. Specimens of Arca Branderi and Solen gracilis may be found here as perfect as on the day they were deposited.

A little farther on, nearly under the Gangway, rises the Barton clay, encrusted with Crassatella sulcata.[272] And here, on looking at the cliff, we may notice how all the beds, as they rise westward, gradually lose their clayey character, and run into sand, which will account for this part of the cliff foundering so fast. The water percolates through the sand down to the Barton Beds, and the loose mass above is thus launched into the sea.

Below the Barton Coastguard Station rises another bed of green clay, containing sharks’ teeth and the bones of fish. About a mile farther on, the High Cliff Beds emerge rich with Cassis ambigua and Cassidaria nodosa. And below them, seen in the channel of the stream flowing through Chewton Bunny, rises a bed of bright metallic-looking, green clay, the Nummulina Prestwichiana Bed of Mr. Fisher, containing sharks’ teeth and some few shells. Beyond, a little to the west of High Cliff Castle, occurs the well-marked Pebble Bed, the commencement of the Bracklesham Series, containing rolled chalk flints, and casts of shells. Next follow grey sands full of fossil wood and vegetable matter, marked by a course of oxydized ironstone-septaria. Then succeeds another Pebble Bed, and lastly appear the grey Bracklesham Sands.[273]

We have thus gone through the principal beds, both of the Freshwater and Marine Series, as far as they are exposed in this section along the sea-coast. The fluvio-marine beds stretch away eastward as far as Beaulieu and Hythe, but their clays here contain very few shells. On the other hand, the Bracklesham Beds trend away northward towards Stoney-Cross, appearing in the valley, and cropping out again on the other side of the Southampton Water.

Some few words must be said about them. The highest beds, known as the Hunting Bridge Beds, occur in Copse St. Leonards, not far from the Fritham Road.[274] In a descending order, separated by thirty or forty feet of unfossiliferous clays, come the Shepherd’s Gutter Beds, to be found about half a mile lower down the King’s Gairn Brook; and below them, again, separated by forty or fifty feet of unfossiliferous clays, and situated somewhat more than a mile lower down the same stream, rise the Brook Beds. Still farther down, too, from some shells very lately discovered at Cadenham, it is supposed that the Cerithium Bed of Stubbington and Bracklesham Bay will be found, but this is not yet ascertained.

The Hunting Bridge Beds I have never examined, but subjoin their measurements, as also their most typical shells,[275] and must here content myself to give a general description of the Shepherd’s Gutter and Brook Beds. The former, the equivalent to the Nummulina Bed at Stubbington, Bracklesham, and White-Cliff Bay, is so called from a small stream at the foot of Bramble Hill Wood, about a mile due north of the King’s Gairn Brook. The measurements are as follows:—(1) Gravel from one to five feet; (2) light-coloured clay, with a few fossils sparingly distributed, five to six feet; (3) Turritella carinifera bed, one foot and a half; (4) fossil bed, characterized by Conus deperditus, and the abundance of Pecten corneus within a few inches of the bottom, one foot and a half.

It is worth noticing that these, like all the Bracklesham beds, roll. In a pit which Mr. Keeping and myself dug we found there had been a regular displacement of the gravel, and that the beds rose at an angle of thirty degrees, whilst the fossil bed was three feet lower on one side than the other of the pit. In another, after cutting through a foot of gravel, in which we found the os inominatum, of probably Bos longifrons,[276] and a bed of sandy clay about two feet in thickness, we came upon a deposit of gravel about four inches thick, lying in the depressions of the stiff brown clay which succeeded, and in which still remained roots and vegetable matter. Thus we can plainly see that, after the clay had been deposited, vegetable, and perhaps animal, life flourished. Then came the gravel, carrying all before it, and in its turn, too, was nearly swept away, and only left here and there in a few scattered patches.

Perhaps, nothing is so startling as this insecurity of life. As was the Past so will be the Future, guided, though, always by that Law, which at every step still rises, moving in no circle, but out of ruin bringing order, and from Death, Life.

The Brook Beds I can best describe for the general reader by an account of a pit which Mr. Keeping and myself made. It was sunk about 20 feet from the King’s Gairn Brook, and measured about 6 yards long by 4 broad. We first cut through a loamy sand, measuring 3 feet, and then came upon 19 inches of gravel, where at the base stretched the half fossilized trunk of an oak, and a thick drift of leaves mixed with black peaty matter, the remains of some primæval forest. Three feet of light-coloured clay, unfossiliferous, succeeded; and then came the Corbula Bed, with its myriads of Corbula pisum, massed together, nearly all pierced by their enemies, the Murices. Stiff light-coloured clay, measuring 18 inches, followed, revealing some of the shells, which were to be found so plentiful in the next stratum. Here, at the Pleurotoma attenuata Bed, our harvest commenced, and since Mr. Keeping has worked these beds, no spot has ever yielded such rich results. Every stroke of the pick showed the pearl and opal-shaded colours of the nautilus, and the rich chestnut glaze of the Pecten corneus, whilst at the bottom lay the great thick-shelled Carditæ planicostæ. Inside one of these were enclosed two most lovely specimens of Calyptræa trochiformis. Mr. Keeping here, too, found a young specimen of Natica cepacea (?), and I had the good fortune to turn up the largest Pleurotoma attenuata ever yet discovered, measuring 4½ inches in length, and 3¼ inches in circumference round the thickest whorl.

We were now down no less than 8 feet. And at this stage the water from the brook, which had been threatening, began to burst in upon us from the north side. We, however, with intervals of bailing, still pushed on till we reached the next bed of pale clay, measuring from 7 to 8 inches, containing Cassidariæ highly pyritised, and sharks’ teeth, amongst which Mr. Keeping discovered an enormous spine, measuring at least 10 inches in length, but we were unable to take it out perfect. The water had all this time been gaining upon us, in spite of our continuous efforts to bail it with buckets. We, however, succeeded in making the Voluta horrida bed, which seemed, at this spot, literally teeming with shells. Each spitful, too, showed specimens of fruit, earbones, fish-palates, drift-wood, and those nodular concretions which had gathered round some berry or coral.[277]

At this point, the water, which was now pouring through the side in a complete stream, and a rumbling noise, showed danger was imminent. Hastily picking up our tools and fossils we retreated. In a moment a mass of clay began to move, and two or three tons, completely burying our bed, fell where we had stood. Founder after founder kept succeeding, driving the water up to higher levels. We procured assistance, but precious time was lost. Night began to fall, and we were obliged to leave unworked one of the richest spots which, in these beds, may, perhaps, ever be met.

As it was, we found no less than sixty-one species, including in all 230 good cabinet specimens, which, considering the small size of the pit, and our limited time, and the great disadvantages under which we worked, well showed the richness of these beds.

Merely, however, collecting fossils for collecting’s sake is useless. The aim of geology is to enable us to understand how this world was made—how form followed form, how type after type took life and then passed away, and the higher organization ever succeeded the lower. The Middle-Eocene ought to be to us particularly interesting, separating us, on the one hand, from those monsters which had filled the previous Age, and, on the other, presenting the first appearances of those higher mammals which should serve the future wants of man. The pterodactyle no longer darkened the air. The iguanodon now slept in its grave of chalk. A new earth, covered with new types and new forms, had appeared. It is a strange sight which the Hordle Cliffs unveil. Here, beneath a sun fiercer than in our tropics, the crocodile basked in its reed beds. Here the alligator crimsoned the stream, as he struck his jaws into his victim; whilst the slow tryonyx paddled through the waves, and laid its eggs on the sand, where its plates are now bedded.

The very rushes, which grew on the river banks, lie caked together, with the teeth of the rats which harboured in them. The pine-cones still, too, lie there, their surfaces scarcely more abraded than when they dropped from the tree into the tepid waters. Along the muddy river shore browsed the paloplothere, whilst his mate crashed through the jungle of club-mosses. Groves of palms stood inland, or fringed the banks, swarming with land-snakes. Birds waded in the shallows. But no human voice sounded: nothing was to be heard but the screaming of the river-fowl, and the deep bellow of the tapir-shaped palæothere, and the wolf-like bark of the hyænodon.

This description is no mere fancy, but taken from the remains actually discovered in the Hordle Cliffs. I have had no need to borrow from the fossils of the Headon and Binstead Beds, or the caves of Montmartre. On these cliffs, too, is scored the history of the past. Here lie the little Nuculæ, still crimson and pink as when they first settled down through the water into their bed of sand; and teeth of dichodons still bright with enamel. The struggle of life raged as fiercely then as now. And the pierced skull of the palæothere still tells where it received its death-wound from its foe the crocodile.

But other things do they reveal. They plainly show, as was, I believe, first suggested by Mr. Searles Wood, that in the Middle-Eocene period Europe and America were connected. The pachyderms of Hordle are allied to the tapirs of the New World. The same alligators still swim in the warm rivers of Florida: and the same type of sauroid fish, whose scales spangle the Freshwater Beds, is now only found in the West.

CHAPTER XXI.
THE BOTANY.—THE FLOWERING PLANTS AND FERNS.

Closely connected with the geology of the Forest are its flowers. And though mere geology could not tell us the whole Flora of a district, yet we might always be able, by its help and that of the latitude, to give the typical plants. Close to the chalk, the Forest possesses none of the chalk flowers. No bee-orchis or its congeners, although so common on all the neighbouring Wiltshire downs, bloom. No travellers’-joy trails amongst its thickets, although every hedge in Dorsetshire, just across the Avon, is clothed in the autumn with its white fleece of seeds. No yellow bird’s-nest (Monotropa Hypopitys) shades itself under its beeches, though growing only a few miles distant on the chalk.

Still, here there are some contradictions. The chalk-loving yew appears to be indigenous. Several plants which we might reasonably expect, as herb-Paris, the bird-nest orchis (Neottia Nidus-avis), and the common mezereon (Daphne Mezereum), are wanting.

Owing to the want of stiff clay, no hornbeams grow in its woods, except, perhaps, a few in one or two cold “bottoms.” No Solomon’s seal or lilies of the valley whiten its dells. No meadow-geranium waves its blue flowers on the banks of the Avon.[278]

On the other hand, the plants too truly tell the character of the soil. In the spring the little tormentil shows its bright blossoms, and the petty-whin grows side by side with the furze, and the sweet mock-myrtle throws its shadow over the streams. In the summer and autumn the blue sheep’s-bit scabious and the golden-rod bloom, with the three heathers. In the bogs the round-leaved sundew is pearled with wet, and not far from it the cotton-grass waves its white down, and the asphodel rears its golden spike.

These are the commonest flowers of the Forest, and grow everywhere over its moors. In its dykes and marshes, the common frog-bit and the marsh-pimpernel spring up in every direction. The buckbean, too, brightens every pool on the south side, and is so common near the Avon that many of the fields are called “the buckbean mead,” whilst in the northern parts it is known as “the fringed water-lily.”

Very rich is the Forest in all these bog-plants. In Hinchelsea and Wilverley Bottoms grow the water-pimpernel (Samolus Valerandi), the lesser bladder-wort, and the bur-reed (Sparganium natans) floating on the water. Here, too, perhaps, the easternmost station known for it, blossoms the butterwort (Pinguicula Lusitanica), with its pale delicate flowers. In the autumn, also, the open turf grounds round Wootton are blue with the Calathian violet (Gentiana Pneumonanthe); whilst its little bright congener (Cicendia filiformis) blossoms in all the damp places.

Owing, also, to the presence of iron, the Forest possesses no less than seventeen or eighteen carices. The little thyme-leaved flax, too (Radiola millegrana), grows in all the moist, sandy dells.

From this general view it will be seen that the true Forest plants are not so much “sylvestral” as “ericetal,” and “paludal,” and “uliginal.” Besides these groups, however, the Flora of the district further divides itself into the “littoral plants” along the sea-shores and estuaries, and the “pascual” flowers of the valley of the Avon. In the former division, owing to the want of rocks, no Statice spathulata grows on its sea-board. No true samphire (Crithmum maritimum) blossoms. The beautiful maiden’s-hair fern, once so plentiful on the neighbouring coast of the Isle of Wight, is also from the same cause wanting.

Still, great beauty blooms on the Forest streams and shores. In the latter part of the summer, the mudbanks of the Beaulieu river are perfectly purple with the sea-aster, whilst the sea-lavender waves its bright blue crest among the reed-beds washed over by every tide.

The valley of the Avon is characterized, as may be expected, by the commoner species, which are to be found in such situations. Here, and in the adjoining cultivated parts, which once were more or less a part of the Forest, we find the soap-wort (Saponaria officinalis) and the thorn-apple (Datura Stramonium), and those colonists which always harbour close to the dwellings of man. Other considerations remain. The situation and climate of the New Forest, of course, have a great effect on its plants.[279] The two myrtles and the sweet-bay grow under the cliffs of Eagleshurst, close to the Solent, unhurt by the hardest frosts. The grapes ripen on the cottage-walls of Beaulieu nearly as early as in Devonshire. I have seen the coltsfoot in full blossom, near Hythe, on the 27th of February; and the blackthorn flowers at Wootton on the 3rd of April.

The area of the New Forest comes under Watson’s Subprovince of the Mid-Channel, on the Southern belt of his Inferagrarian zone. Its position lies exactly half-way between his Germanic and Atlantic types. The former shows itself by Dianthus Armeria, and Pulicaria vulgaris, growing near Marchwood and Bisterne. The latter by such examples as Cotyledon umbilicus, Pinguicula Lusitanica, Briza minor, and Agrostis setacea. The “British” and “English” types are, of course, plentifully represented.[280]

Looking, too, at the trees and shrubs which are indigenous, we shall find them also eminently characteristic. In spite of what Cæsar says, the beech is certainly a native, pushing out in places even the oak. The holly, too, grows everywhere in massy clumps. In the spring, the wild crab (Pyrus Malus) crimsons the thickets of Brockenhurst, in the autumn the maple. The butcher’s broom stands at the foot of each beech, and the ivy twines its great coil round each oak, and the mistletoe finds its home on the white poplar.

After all, the trees, and not the flowers, give its character to the New Forest. In the spring, all its woods are dappled with lights and shades, with the amber of the oak and the delicate soft-gleaming green of the birch and beech. In the autumn, the spindle-tree (Euonymus Europæus) in the Wootton copses is hung with its rosy gems; and the trenches of Castle Malwood are strewed with the silver leaves of the white-beam.

To return, however, to the plants, let us notice how some particular families seem especially to like the light gravelly soil of the Forest district. Take, for instance, the St. John’s-worts, of which we have no less than six, if not more varieties. The common perforated (Hypericum perforatum) shines on every dry heath, and the square-stalked (quadrangulum) in all the damp boggy places. The tutsan (Androsæmum) is so common round Wootton that it is known to all the children as “touchen leaves,” evidently only a corruption of its name; and its berries are believed throughout the Forest to be stained with the blood of the Danes. The rarer large-flowered (calycinum) grows, though not, I am afraid, truly wild, in some of the thickets round Sway. In all the ponds, the marsh (elodes) springs up, whilst the creeping (humifusum) trails its blossoms over the turf of the Forest lanes, and the small (pulchrum) shows its orange-tipped flowers amongst the brambles and bushes.

Take, again, the large family of the ferns, of which seventeen species are distributed throughout the Forest. First and foremost, of course, stands the royal fern (Osmunda regalis), which may be found from the sea-board to Fordingbridge, rearing its stem in some places six feet high, and covering in patches on the southern border, as at Beckley, nearly a quarter of an acre. It grows in Chewton Glen, in all the lanes in the neighbourhood, on Ashley Common, close to the Osmanby Ford River, and rears its golden-brown pannicles in the boggy thickets near Rufus’s Stone. But before it, in beauty, stands the lady-fern, with its delicate fronds and its tender green, growing in the open spaces of the beech woods, as at Stonehard and Puckpits, and bending over the Forest streams in large leafy clumps. Then, too, in all the large woods grows the sweet-scented mountain fern (Lastrea Oreopteris); and on every bank the hart’s-tongue spreads its broad ribbon-like leaves, and the fertile fronds of the hard-fern spring up feathery and light, whilst from the old oaks the common polypody droops with its dark green tresses. The common maiden-hair (Asplenium Trichomanes), too, hangs on the walls and Forest banks; and on Alice Lisle’s tomb, at Ellingham, the rue-leaved spleenwort is green throughout the whole year. On Breamore churchyard wall and Ringwood bridges grows the common scale-fern, whilst in the meadows of the Avon springs the adder’s-tongue’s green spear.

Nor must we forget the brake, common though it be, for this it is which gives the Forest so much of its character, clothing it with green in the spring; and when the heather is withered, and the furze, too, decayed, making every holt and hollow golden.[281]

And now for some other plants, without reference to their species, but simply to their beauty. On Ashley Common and the neighbouring grass-fields grows the moth-mullein (Verbascum Blattaria), dropping its yellow flowers, as they one by one expand. In the neighbouring pools, as far as Wootton, the blossoms of the great spearwort (Ranunculus Lingua) gleam among the reeds. There, also, the narrow-leaved lungwort (Pulmonaria angustifolia), with its leaves both plain and spotted, opens its blue and crimson flowers so bright, that they are known to all the children as the “snake flower,” and gathered by handfuls mixed with the spotted orchis. And the ladies’ tresses, too (Spiranthes autumnalis), shows its delicate brown braid on every dry field on the southern border.

Besides these, the feathered pink (Dianthus plumarius) blooms on the cloister-walls at Beaulieu; and the Deptford pink (Dianthus Armeria) in the valley of the Avon at Hucklebrook, near Ibbesley. The bastard-balm (Melittis Melissophyllum) flaunts its white and purple blossoms over the banks of Wootton plantation, whilst at Oakley and Knyghtwood the red gladiolus crimsons the green beds of fern.

Briefly, let me say that, as is the Forest soil, so are its plants. Nature ever makes some compensations. The barrenest places she ever clothes with beauty. If corn will not grow, she will give man something better. In the great woods the columbines and tutsan shine in the spring with their blue and yellow blossoms, and the wood-sorrel nestles its white flowers among the mossy roots of the oaks. In the more open spaces the foxgloves overtop the brake, and in the grassy spots the eyebright waves its white-grey crest; and not far off are sure to gleam faint crimson patches of the marsh-pimpernel, half hid in moss; whilst the swamps are fringed with the coral of the sundew.

CHAPTER XXII.
THE ORNITHOLOGY.

To describe the Fauna of the Forest is beyond the purpose of this book, and would, beside, require a life-time to properly accomplish. I can only here deal with the ornithology as I have with the botany. I do not know either that the general reader will lose anything by the treatment. A scientific knowledge is not so much needed as, first of all, a sympathy with nature, and a love for all her forms of beauty. The great object in life is not to know, but to feel. But, before we speak of the birds, let us correct some errors which are so common with regard to the animals. It is quite a mistake to talk of wild boars or wild ponies roaming over the Forest. There is not now an animal here without an owner. The wild boars introduced by Charles I., and others brought over some fifty years ago, are seen only in their tame descendants—sandy-coloured, or “badger-pied,” as they are called, which are turned out into the Forest during the pannage months.[282]

So, too, the Forest ponies never run wild, except in the sense of being unbroken. Lath-legged, small-bodied, and heavy-headed, but strong and hardy, living on nothing in the winter but the furze, they are commonly said, without the slightest ground, to be descendants of the Spanish horses which swam ashore from the disabled ships of the Armada.

And now for the ornithology. The thick woods, the lonely moors and holts, attract the birds of prey; the streams and marshes the waders; whilst the estuaries of the Beaulieu, and Lymington, and Christchurch rivers, and the Solent, afford a shelter in winter to the geese and ducks driven from the north.

Again, too, the peculiar mildness of the climate has its effect on the birds as well as the plants. The martin and the swallow come early in March and stay till the end of November; that is to say, remain full three-quarters of the year. I have heard, too, the cuckoo as early as April 11th and as late as July the 12th. The warblers, whose arrival depends so much on the south-east winds, may not come earlier than in other parts of England. They certainly, however, in the southern and more cultivated parts, where food is plentiful, stay here later than in the Midland Counties; and I have heard the whitethroat singing, as on a spring day, in the middle of October.

We will begin with the birds of prey. Gilpin (vol. ii. p. 294) mentions a pair of golden eagles, which, for many years, at times frequented King’s Wood, and a single specimen, killed near Ashley Lodge. These, however, with the exception of one shot some twenty years ago over Christchurch Harbour, are the last instances of a bird, which can now be seldom seen except in the north of Scotland. Yarrell,[283] too, notices that the sea eagle (Aquila albicilla) is sometimes a visitor in the district, but though I have been down under the Hordle and Barton Cliffs, day after day, for often six months together, I have never seen a specimen. It, however, sometimes occurs in the winter, and is mistaken for its rarer ally; and the Eagle Tree at the extreme west end of Vinney Ridge commemorates where one was shot, some fifty years ago, by a Forest-keeper. The osprey, however (Falco haliæëtus), still frequents the coast in the autumn, and circles over Christchurch Harbour fishing for his prey, where, as Yarrell mentions, he is well known as the “grey-mullet hawk,” on account of his fondness for that fish.

The Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus), which breeds on the high Culver Cliffs of the Isle of Wight, and in the Lulworth Rocks, is in the summer a regular visitor, and scours the whole country. No year goes by without some half-dozen or more being killed.

Its congener the hobby (Falco subbuteo), known in the Forest as “the van-winged hawk,” comes about the same time as the honey-buzzard, building in the old, deserted nests of crows and magpies, and even, as in one case, to my knowledge, in that of the honey-buzzard. The bird, however, is becoming scarce. For several years I have known a pair or two build in Buckhill Wood, of which a sketch is given at the end of this chapter, but last year none came. It lays generally about the beginning of June, though I have received its eggs as late as July 12th. Yarrell says that their number is three or four; but, with Mr. Hoy,[284] I have never known the bird lay more than three, and very often only two.

The goshawk (Falco palumbarius) and the rough-legged buzzard (Falco lagopus) are very rarely seen; but, I fear, the kite, although so plentiful in Gilpin’s time, has nearly deserted this, like all other districts. Once, and once only, has it been seen by Mr. Farren. The honey-buzzard, however (Falco apivorus), comes regularly over from Germany about the end of May, attracted, in some measure, perhaps, by its favourite food, the larvæ of wasps and bees, but chiefly by the wide range of the woods. At Mark Ash and Puckpits I have frequently, for an hour together, watched a couple, sailing with their wings outspread, allowing the wind, on a boisterous day, to catch them, till it almost veered them over; just circling round the tops of the beeches, sometimes even “tumbling,” like a pigeon, and answering each other with their sharp, short cry, prolonged every now and then into a melancholy wail. Its favourite breeding stations are amongst the tall beech-woods round Lyndhurst, in Mark Ash, and Gibbs Hill, Puckpits, Coalmeer, Prior’s Acre, and the oaks of Bentley and Sloden. The nest is always placed in the old one of a crow, or even the common buzzard, whose young by that time have flown, and sometimes made on the top of a squirrel’s “cage,” the birds contenting themselves with only re-shaping it, and lining the inside with fresh green leaves. The fact of a squirrel’s “cage” being used will account for the nest being sometimes found so low, and on a comparatively small tree. No rule can therefore be laid down as to its position. I have known the bird build in very different situations. Mr. Rake found its nest in Sloden, on the forked bough of a low oak, not thirty feet from the ground. In 1860 a pair built, not very much higher, in the overhanging branch of a beech in Puckpits; and, in the same year, another pair reared their young on the top of a fir in Holmy Ridge Hill. And in 1861 and 1862, I knew of two nests, not fifty yards apart, in Mark Ash, each placed nearly at the top of the very tallest beeches in the wood, at least seventy or eighty feet from the ground. As so little appears to be known about its breeding habits, I may as well add a few more words. It seldom arrives till the beginning of June, when the leaves are thick on the trees, and immediately commences its nest, for which purpose it seems only to come, as it immediately departs when the young birds can fly. Pairs have been known, however, not to lay till the end of July; and, I am assured by one of the Forest keepers, not sometimes till even the beginning of August; but these are, doubtless, cases where the birds have been robbed of their first eggs. It differs from the common buzzard in not flying away when disturbed during incubation, but merely skimming round the top of the tree in small circles, uttering its short, shrill cry, sometimes both male and female perching on the branch of a neighbouring tree, and remaining undisturbed by shouts or cries, whilst the nest is being reached. At these times a kind of stupidity seizes the bird. It has, to my knowledge, on several occasions, remained in the nest till a boy has touched its feathers, and returned as soon as he left.

As a further illustration, I may add, that in one of the nests before mentioned, in Mark Ash (June 7th, 1862), was only one egg, which was taken. The birds, however, did not forsake, and another, which was also taken, was laid on the third day. Even then the birds did not desert, but after the interval of two more days laid a third egg, about one-half smaller than usual, and in shape somewhat resembling a peregrine’s.

On another occasion, June 11th, 1859, a pair bred in a high beech in Coalmeer Wood, near Stoney Cross, and though fired at more than once did not desert. The female, however, was first shot, when the cock, nothing daunted, took his partner’s place, and sat on the eggs, and in a day or two afterwards shared her fate. In the nest were two eggs, which, with the exception before mentioned, I have never known exceeded. Those in my collection vary in colouring from the light dull vermilion, which so often characterizes the merlin’s eggs, to a deep rich morone, tinted, especially in newly-taken specimens, with a delicate crimson bloom.[285]

A few words more. The birds are not much seen in the day, but generally early in the morning. Whilst the hen bird sits on the eggs, the cock perches close by in some tall thick tree. Perhaps from this very affection for their young arises their seeming stupidity, and the ease with which they are killed. Some years ago a keeper found a nest with two young birds in Bentley Wood, and on purpose to secure them tied them by their legs to a small tree, where the old birds regularly came and fed them. But the strangest fact with regard to their breeding is that before they finally decide upon a nest they will line several with green leaves and small leafy twigs. Lastly, I may add that though I have examined many nests, I have never found any traces of their being, as is related by some writers, lined with wool. If there was any wool it was probably placed there by the bird which had previously inhabited the nest.

The common buzzard (Falco buteo) is a resident all through the year in the Forest, and may now and then be seen towering high up in the air, so high that you would not at first notice him, unless you heard his wild scream. It is not, however, nearly so plentiful as formerly. He is a sad coward, and the common crow will not only attack, but defeat him. Once or twice I have seen their battles during the breeding season. The jays, and magpies, too, and even the pewits, will mob him, the latter striking at him almost like a falcon. Its favourite breeding-places are in the Denny and Bratley Woods, Sloden, Birchen Hat, Mark Ash, and Prior’s Acre. Several nests are yearly taken, for the bird generally breeds when the bark-strippers are at work in April and May. A series of its eggs, in my collection, taken in the Forest, show every variety of colouring from nearly pure white to richly blotched specimens.

In the breeding-season the birds are excessively destructive. A boy who climbed up to a nest in the spring of 1860 told me that he found no less than two young rabbits, a grey hen, and two thrushes as provision for two nestlings. However, there is always some compensation, for in one which I examined were the skeletons of two snakes and a rat picked to the bone.