BY
W. H. HUDSON
1923
J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.
LONDON & TORONTO
PARIS: J. M. DENT ET FILS
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
INSCRIBED TO
SIR EDWARD AND LADY GREY
NORTHUMBRIANS
WITH HAMPSHIRE WRITTEN IN THEIR HEARTS
CONTENTS
Autumn in the New Forest—Red colour in mammals—Novembermildness—A house by the Boldre—An idealspot for small birds—Abundance of nests—Smallmammals and the weasel's part—Voles and mice—Hornetand bank-vole—Young shrews—A squirrel'svisit—Green woodpecker's drumming-tree—Drummingof other species—Beauty of great spotted woodpecker—Thecuckoo controversy—A cuckoo in a robin'snest—Behaviour of the cuckoo—Extreme irritability—Mannerof ejecting eggs and birds from the nest—Lossof irritability—Insensibility of the parent robins—Discourseon mistaken kindness, pain and death innature, the annual destruction of bird life, and theyoung cuckoo's instinct.
Between the Boldre and the Exe—Abuse of the NewForest—Character of the population—New Forest code andconscience—A radical change foreshadowed—Tenacityof the Forest fly—Oak woods of Beaulieu—Swallow andpike—Charm of Beaulieu—Instinctive love of openspaces—A fragrant heath—Nightjars—Snipe—Redshanks—Pewits—Causeof sympathy with animals—Grasshopperand spider—A rapacious fly—Melancholymoods—Evening on the heath—"World-strangeness"—Pixiemounds—Death and burial—The dead inthe barrows—Their fear of the living.
A favourite New Forest haunt—Summertide—Young blackbird'scall—Abundance of blackbirds and thrushes, anddestruction of young—Starlings breeding—The gooddone by starlings—Perfume of the honeysuckle—Beautyof the hedge rose—Cult of the rose—Lesserwhitethroat—His low song—Common and lesserwhitethroat—In the woods—A sheet of bracken—Effect ofbroken surfaces—Roman mosaics at Silchester—Whymosaics give pleasure—Woodland birds—Sound ofinsect life—Abundance of flies—Sufferings ofcattle—Dark Water—Biting and teasing flies—Feeding thefishes and fiddlers with flies.
The stag-beetle—Evening flight—Appearance on thewing—Seeking a mate—Stag and doe in a hedge—Theplough-man and the beetle—A stag-beetle's fate—Concerningtenacity of life—Life appearances after death—Aserpent's skin—A dead glow-worm's light—Littlesummer tragedies—A snaky spot—An adder'sbasking-place—Watching adders—The adder's senses—Adder'shabits not well known—A pair of anxious pewits—Adead young pewit—Animals without knowledgeof death—Removal of the dead by ants—Gould'sobservations on ants.
Cessation of song—Oak woods less silent thanothers—Mixed gatherings of birds in oak woods—Abundance ofcaterpillars—Rapacious insects—Wood ants—Alarmcries of woodland birds—Weasel and smallbirds—Fascination—Weasel and short-tailed vole—Accountof Egyptian cats fascinated by fire—Rabbits andstoats—Mystery of fascination—Cases of pre-natalsuggestion—Hampshire pigs fascinated by fire—Conjecturesas to the origin of fascination—A dead