river feeding on the mud and among the stones at ebb tide. Among those I
have seen are flocks of starlings and scattered birds, mainly redwings,
thrushes, blackbirds, and occasionally robins. Sandpipers also migrate up
the Thames in spring, and down it in autumn.




WITTENHAM WOOD


In Wittenham Wood, which in our time was not spoiled, from a naturalist's
point of view, by too much trapping or shooting the enemies of game,
though there was plenty of wild game in it, the balance of nature was
quite undisturbed. Of course we never shot a hawk or an owl, and I think
the most important item of vermin killed was two cats, which were hung up
as an awful instance of what we could do if we liked.

[Illustration: OTTERS. _From a photograph by J. S. Bond_.]

[Illustration: WATERHEN ON HER NEST. _From a photograph by R. B. Lodge_.]

In such large isolated woods, the wild life of the ordinary countryside
exists under conditions somewhat differing from those found even in
estates where the natural cover of woodland is broken up into copses and
plantations. Birds and beasts, and even vegetation, are found in an
intermediate stage between the wholly artificial life on cultivated land
and the natural life in true forest districts like the New Forest or
Exmoor. Most of these woods are cut bare, so far as the underwood extends,
once in every seven years. But the cutting is always limited to a seventh