Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/288

Rh and clouded with brown, and are thus easily overlooked. About the same time, or even earlier—in February—the raven will build, or rather used to, in the old woods round Burley. In 1858 the two last nests were taken, the eggs being somewhat smaller than those which I have received from the Orkneys. Another of its breeding stations was in Puckpits, where, however, it has not built for the last four seasons. Formerly the bird was common enough, as the different Ravensnest Woods still show; and old men in the Forest have told me, in direct opposition, however, to what Yarrell says, that when, as boys, taking its eggs, they were obliged to arm themselves with stones and sticks to drive off the parent birds, who fiercely defended their nests with their claws and bills. Now it is nearly extinct, though a pair may sometimes be seen wherever there is a dead horse or cow in the district.

Then, when the summer comes, and the woods are green and dark, the honey-buzzard skims round the tops of the trees; and the snipe, whose young have not yet left the swamps, goes circling high up in the air, "bleating," as the common people here call the noise of its wings, each time it descends in its waving, wandering flight; whilst out on the open spaces the whinchat, known throughout the Forest, from its cry, as the "furze hacker," jerks itself from one furze branch to another; and flitting along with it fly a pair of Dartford warblers.

And as, too, evening draws down, from the young green fern the goatsucker, the "night-crow" and the "night-hawk" of the district, springs up under your feet, and settles a few yards off, and then flies a little way farther, hoping to lead you from its white marble-veined eggs on the bare ground. 270