'Newbury
Battle.'

Perhaps it is because no such outbursts of human passions have
swept along beneath its trees that the 'Forest' is unsung by
the poet and unvisited by the artist. Yet its very name is
poetical--Savernake--_i.e._, savernes-acres--like the God's-acres
of Longfellow. Saverne--a peculiar species of sweet fern;
acre--land.' So we may call it 'Fern-land Forest,' and with truth,
for but one step beneath those beeches away from the path plunges
us to our shoulders in an ocean of bracken.

The yellow stalks, stout and strong as wood, make walking through
the brake difficult, and the route pursued devious, till, from the
constant turning and twisting, the way is lost. For this is no
narrow copse, but a veritable forest in which it is easy to lose
oneself; and the stranger who attempts to pass it away from the
beaten track must possess some of the Indian instinct which sees
signs and directions in the sun and wind, in the trees and humble
plants of the ground.

And this is its great charm. The heart has a yearning for the
unknown, a longing to penetrate the deep shadow and the winding
glade, where, as it seems, no human foot has been.

High overhead in the beech-tree the squirrel peeps down from behind
a bough, his long bushy tail curled up over his back, and his bright
eyes full of mischievous cunning. Listen, and you will hear the
tap, tap of the woodpecker, and see! away he goes in undulating
flight with a wild, unearthly chuckle, his green and gold plumage
glancing in the sun, like the parrots of far-distant lands. He will
alight in some open space upon an ant-hill, and lick up the red
insects with his tongue. In the fir-tree there, what a chattering
and fluttering of gaily-painted wings!--three or four jays are
quarrelling noisily. These beautiful birds are slain by scores
because of their hawk-like capacities for destruction of game, and
because of the delicate colours of their feathers, which are used in
fly-fishing.

There darts across the glade a scared rabbit, straining each little
limb for speed, almost rushing against us, a greater terror
overcoming the less. In a moment there darts forth from the dried
grass a fierce red-furred hunter, a very tiger to the rabbit tribe,
with back slightly arched, bounding along, and sniffing the scent;
another, and another, still a fourth--a whole pack of stoats (elder
brothers of the smaller weasels). In vain will the rabbit trust to
his speed, these untiri