he childlike simplicity of its treatment
succeeds where conscious effort would only end in affectation.

[Illustration: FIG. 66.]

[Illustration: FIG. 67.]

In Fig. 66 you will see another little figure doing duty in connection
with a stall division in the Lady Chapel at Winchester Cathedral. Its
smooth roundness of form is very appropriate to the position it
occupies; while its polished surface bears ample testimony that it has
given no offense to the touch of the many hands which have rested upon
it.

Fig. 67 shows another example of the same sort, but perched on a lower
part of the division. This one is from the cathedral at Berne, each
division of the stalls having a different figure, of which this is a
type.

CHAPTER XX

STUDIES FROM NATURE--BIRDS AND BEASTS

The Introduction of Animal Forms--Rude Vitality Better than Dull
"Natural History"--"Action"--Difficulties of the Study for
Town-Bred Students--The Aid of Books and Photographs--Outline
Drawing and Suggestion of Main Masses--Sketch-Book Studies,
Sections, and Notes--Swiss Animal Carving--The Clay Model: its Use
and Abuse.

Nothing enlivens or gives more variety of interest to wood-carving than
the introduction of animal forms. They make agreeable halting-places on
which the eye may rest with pleasure. They are, in general, both
beautiful in their shapes and associated with ideas which appeal
strongly to the imagination, thus affording in masses of abstract
ornament the pleasantest kind of relief by adding to it points of
definite lineament and meaning.

To carve animals as they ought to be carved, one must have something
more than a passing interest in their forms; there must be included also
an understanding of their natures, and some acquaintance with their
habits. A cattle-drover is likely to know the salient points of a
bullock, a horse-breeder all those connected with a horse, and so on. We
students, however, not having the advantage of such accurate and
personal knowledge, must make shift in the best way we can to discover
and note the points so familiar to trained eyes. To see animals in this
way, and, with knowledge of their forms and habits, treat their
sculptured images according to the laws of our craft, is no light task.
If choice were to be made between a rude manner of carving--but which
familiarity with the subject invested with lively recognition of
character--and a more cultured and elaborat