New Fox Coverts A good part of one very big
common has recently become so thick with gorse that it is now regarded as a fox covert. The gorse offers a glorious spectacle at one season of the year, but it is hardly the right development for a common to become a fox covert. In earlier days, when the grazing rights and the rights of " Estovers " were used by the com- moners, the various growths were kept in check; and the whole of the space was available to the public for the " air and exercise " to which the public is entitled. The free, natural growth of thorn, bramble, holly, scrub-oak, wild plum, gorse, elder, briar and the rest is all to the good, if not too ex- tensive. There are commons which are paradises for birds as different in habit as larks, nightingales, linnets and red shrikes. They nest there—experto crede—and sing there, as they certainly did not in older days. The value of such a change in the surface of an open place depends on its degree, and one may hope that the local councils will find means of satisfy- ing the public, the local inhabitants and the birds and flowers.
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