Wild Life in a Southern County

by Richard Jefferies

The nuts upon the bushes do not all ripen at the same time: one or two bushes are first, and offer ripe nuts before the rest have hardened sufficiently. The leaves on these also drop earlier, turning a light yellow. The size and even the shape of the nuts vary too, some being nearly round and others roughly resembling the almond. Their flavour when taken from the bush is sweet, juicy, ‘nutty.’ When they will ‘slip udd’ is the proper time to gather them—i.e. when the hood or outer green covering slips off at a touch, leaving the light-brown nut in the palm: it is a delicately shaded brown. Cut off just the tip of the nut—the pointed keystone of its Gothic arch—with a penknife; insert the blade ever so slightly, and a gentle turn splits the shell and shows two onyx-white hemispheres of kernel.

With a little care the tallest boughs may be pulled down uninjured; if dragged down rudely the bough will be ‘sprung’ where it joins the stole below, and will then wither and die. The plan is simply to apply force by degrees, pulling the main bough only so far forward as to enable the hand to reach air upper branch, seizing the upper branch, and by its aid reaching a still higher one, and gradually bending the central stem till it forms a bow. If done gradually and the bow not too acute, the tallest bush will spring up when released without the least injury. With a crook to seize the bush as high up as possible—where it bends more easily—not a twig need be broken, and nutting may be enjoyed without doing the least damage.

Under a tall ash tree rising out of the hazel bushes, and near the great hawthorn on the edge or shore of the ditch, the grass grows rank and is of the deepest green. The dove that could be heard cooing from the orchard built her nest in the hawthorn, which, where it overhangs the grass like a canopy, is bare of boughs for six or seven feet up the gnarled stem. The cattle, who love to shelter under it from the heat of the sun, browsed on the young shoots, so that no branch could form; but on the side towards the ditch there are immense spiny thorns, long enough and strong enough to make a savage’s arrow-head or awl. The doves do not seem nearly so numerous as the wood-pigeons (doves too, in strict language); they are much smaller, rather duller in colour—that is, when flying past—and are rarely seen more than two together. When the summer thunder is booming yonder over the hills, and the thin edge of the dark cloud showers its sweet refreshing rain, with the sunshine gleaming through on the hedge and grass here, between the rolling echoes the dove may be heard in the bush coo-cooing still more softly and lovingly to her mate.

Just in the very angle formed by the meeting hedges the ditch becomes almost a fosse, so broad and deep; the sandy banks have slipped, and the rabbits have excavated more, and over all the brambles have arched thickly with a background of brake fern. The flower of the bramble is very beautiful—a delicate pink bloom, succeeded by green berries, to ripen red, and later black, under the sun. A larger kind are found here and there—the children call them dew-berries or jew-berries indifferently. Some of the bramble leaves linger on a dull green all through the winter.

In the angle a narrow opening runs through between the two banks, which do not quite meet: it is so overgrown with bramble and fern, convolvulus and thorn, that unless the bushes were parted to look in no one would suspect the existence of this green tunnel, which on the other side opens on the ash copse, where a shallow furrow (dry) joins it. This tunnel is the favourite way and passage of the rabbits from the copse out into the tempting pasturage of the meadow; through it too, now and then, a fox creeps quietly. Rabbit-holes drill the bank everywhere, but one near this green bye-way is noticeable because of its immense size.

It must measure eighteen inches or nearly in diameter at the mouth; nor does it diminish abruptly, but continues almost as large a yard or more inside the bank. Spaniels will get right into such a ‘bury,’ till nothing but the tail can be seen, and, if permitted, stay there and dig and scratch frantically. They would sometimes, perhaps, succeed in reaching the prey were it not for the roots of thorn bushes or trees which cross the holes here and there like bars; these they cannot scratch through, but will bite and tear with their teeth—coming out now and then to breathe and shake the sand from their muzzles, then back again with a whine of eager excitement, till presently, in sheer exhaustion, they lie down at the mouth of the cave and pant. This is not allowed if it is known; but spaniels now and then steal away privately, and so frequently make for a hole like this that when their absence is discovered it is the first place visited in search of them. The mingled patience and excitement, the vast labour they will undergo, the quantity of sand they will throw out, the whine—it is not a bark—expressing intense desire, prove how deep is the hunting instinct in the dog.

Even if the burrows be ferreted, in a few weeks this great hole shows signs of fresh inhabitants; and such a specially enlarged entrance may be found somewhere in most of the banks frequented by rabbits. Why do they make an aperture so many times larger than they can possibly require? It may be a kind of ancestral hall, the favourite cave of the first settlers here, clung to by their descendants. Within, perhaps three, or even more, tunnels branch off from it. So busy are they, and so occupied when excavating a fresh passage, that sometimes when waiting quietly on a bank you may see the miner at work. The sand pours out as he casts it behind him with his hinder paws; his back is turned, so that he does not notice anyone.

Along the banks evidence maybe found of attempts at boring holes, abandoned after a few inches of progress had been made: sometimes a root, or a stone perhaps, interferes; sometimes, and apparently more often, caprice seems the only cause why the tunnel was discontinued. The grass in this corner is sweeter to their taste than elsewhere: their runs are everywhere—crossing and winding about.

In the evening, as the shadows deepen and a hush falls upon the meads, they come out and chase and romp with each other. When a couple are at play one will rush ten or a dozen yards away and begin to nibble as if totally unconscious of the other. The second meanwhile nibbles too, but all the while stealthily moves forward, not direct, but sideways, towards the first, demurely feeding. Suddenly the second makes a spring; the first, who has been watching out of the corners of his eye all the time, is off like the wind. Or sometimes he will turn and face the other, and jump clean over, a foot high. Sometimes both leap up together in the exuberance of their mirth.

By the trunk of a mighty oak, growing out of the hedge that runs along the top of the field, the brambles and underwood are thinner, as is generally the case close under a tree; and it is easy to push through just there. On the other side, a huge root covered with deep green moss affords a pleasant seat, leaning back against the trunk. Upon the right, close by, is the ash copse, with its border of thick fir trees; on the left oaks at intervals stand along the hedge; in front stretches the undulating surface of an immense pasture field called The Warren. Like a prairie it rolls gently away, dotted with hawthorn bushes, here and there a crab tree, and two rows of noble elms, in both of which the rooks are busy in spring. Beyond, the ground rises, and the small upland meadows are so thickly timbered as to look like distant glades of a forest; still farther are the downs.