Wild Life in a Southern County

by Richard Jefferies

If, from the rising ground beyond the Warren or from the downs beyond that, the glance is allowed to travel slowly over the vale northwards, instead of the innumerable meadows which are really there, it will appear to consist of one vast forest. Of the hamlet not far distant there is nothing visible but the white wall of a cottage, perhaps, shining in the sun, or the pale blue smoke curling upwards. This wooded appearance is caused by timber trees standing in the hedgerows, in the copses at the corners of the meadows, and by groups and detached trees in the middle of the fields.

Many hedges are full of elms, some have rows of oaks; some meadows have trees growing so thickly in all four hedges as to seem surrounded by a timber wall; one or two have a number of ancient spreading oaks dotted about in the field itself, or standing in rows. But there are not nearly so many trees as there used to be. Numerous hedges have been grubbed to make the fields larger.

Within the last thirty years two large falls of timber have taken place, when the elms especially were thrown wholesale. The old men, however, recall a much greater ‘throw,’ as they term it, of timber, which occurred twice as long ago. Then before that they have a tradition that a still earlier ‘throw’ took place, when the timber chiefly went to the dockyards for the building of those wooden walls which held the world at bay. These traditions go back, therefore, some eighty or a hundred years. One field in particular is pointed out where stood a double row or avenue of great oaks leading to nothing but a farmstead of the ordinary sort, of which there is not the slightest record that it ever was anything but a farmhouse. Now avenues of great oaks are not planted to lead to farmsteads. Besides these, it is said, there were oaks in most of the fields—oaks that have long since disappeared, the prevalent tree being elm.

While all these ‘throws’ of timber have successively taken place, no attempt has been made to fill up the gaps; no planting of acorns, no shielding with rails the young saplings from the ravages of cattle. If a young tree could struggle up it could; if not, it perished. At the last two ‘throws,’ especially, young trees which ought to have been saved were ruthlessly cut down. Yet even now the place is well timbered; so that it is easy to form some idea of the forest-like appearance it must have presented a hundred years ago, when rows of giant oaks led up to that farmhouse door.

Then there are archaeological reasons, which it would be out of place to mention, why in very ancient days a forest, in all probability, stood hereabouts. It seems reasonable to suppose that in one way or another the regular flight of the second army of rooks passing down into this district was originally attracted by the trees. Three suggestions arise out of the circumstances.

The wood in which both streams of rooks roost at night stands on the last slope of the downs; behind it to the south extend the hills, and the open tilled upland plains; below it northwards are the meadows. It has, therefore, much the appearance of the last surviving remnant of the ancient forest. There has been a wood there time out of mind: there are references to the woods of the locality dating from the sixteenth century. Now if we suppose (and such seems to have been really the case) the unenclosed woodlands below gradually cleared of trees—thereby doubtless destroying many rookeries—the rooks driven away would naturally take refuge in the wood remaining. There the enclosure protected them, and there the trees, being seldom or never cut down, or if cut down felled with judgment and with a view to future timber, grew to great size and in such large groups as they prefer. But as birds are creatures of habit, their descendants in the fiftieth generation would still revisit the old places in the meadows.

Secondly, although so many successive ‘throws’ of timber thinned out the trees, yet there may still be found more groups and rows of elms and oak in this direction than in any other; that is, a line drawn northwards from the remaining wood passes through a belt of well-timbered country. On other side of this belt there is much less timber; so that the rooks that desired to build nests beyond the limits of the enclosed wood still found in the old places the best trees for their purpose. Here may be seen far more rookeries than in any other direction. Hardly a farmhouse lying near this belt but has got its rookery, large or small. Once these rookeries were established, an inducement to follow this route would arise in the invariable habit of the birds of visiting their nesting-trees even when the actual nesting time is past.

Thirdly, if the inquiry be carried still farther back, it is possible that the line taken by the rooks indicates the line of the first clearings in very early days. The clearing away of trees and underwood, by opening the ground and rendering it accessible, must be very attractive to birds, and rooks are particularly fond of following the plough. Now although the district is at present chiefly meadow land, numbers of these meadows were originally ploughed fields, of which there is evidence in the surface of the fields themselves, where the regular ‘lands’ and furrows are distinctly visible.

One or all of these suggestions may perhaps account for the course followed by the rooks. In any case it seems natural to look for the reason in the trees. The same idea applies to the other stream of rooks which leaves the wood for the eastward every morning, flying along the downs. In describing the hill district, evidence was given of the existence of woods or forest land upon the downs in the olden time. Detached copses and small woods are still to be found; and it happens that a part of this district, in the line of the eastward flighty belonged to a ‘chase’ of which several written notices are extant.

The habits of rooks seem more regular in winter than in summer. In winter the flocks going out in the morning or returning in the evening appear to pass nearly at the same hour day after day. But in summer they often stay about late. This last summer (1878) I noticed a whole flock, some hundreds in number, remaining out till late—till quite dusk—night after night, and always in the same place. It was an arable field, and there they stood close together on the ground, so close that in spots it was difficult to distinguish individuals. They were silent and still, making no apparent attempt at feeding. The only motion I observed was when a few birds arrived and alighted among them. Where they thus crowded together the earth was literally black.