The Dead Wood
W. H. Hudson, in his Book of a Naturalist, says how dead he found a pine wood, and what he says is right enough. A conifer wood dies as it grows, and the ground beneath the dying trees has little life. The wood is hushed, and few birds sing. At this time of year, however, it is only in a conifer wood that there is life. The deciduous wood is bleak and bare. The wind drives through it, and there is little shelter for any living thing. Among the pines and firs pigeons, rooks, owls, magpies and a score of small birds find warmth in these raw days when winter's grip is firm. Beneath the feet is such a carpet of dead matter that it is possible to walk in silence and see much that one could not see from the rustling floor of a wood of beach and oak. The heavy blanket of pine-tops holds off the frost or the beating rain, and for a while Hudson's dead wood comes into its own.
Previous page
